


We Could Be Heroes

by Rockingham, rulesofthebeneath (radishphilosophy)



Category: Choices: High School Story: Class Act (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:19:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18650929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rockingham/pseuds/Rockingham, https://archiveofourown.org/users/radishphilosophy/pseuds/rulesofthebeneath
Summary: Bailey slides over a thick root protruding from the ground, picking up speed as she glances behind her back to see if her pursuer is still on her tail.Yes, pursuer.She should have known when she woke up that morning that this wasn’t going to be a normal day. And now she was running for her life through the woods after being separated from her twin brother.Casey…





	1. Brave New World

It’s been a long day.

Bailey slides over a thick root protruding from the ground, picking up speed as she glances behind her back to see if her pursuer is still on her tail.

Yes, pursuer.

She should have known when she woke up that morning that this wasn’t going to be a normal day. And now she was running for her life through the woods after being separated from her twin brother.

Casey…

When they had gotten jumped, Casey had thrown himself at their first pursuer, shaking the earth around them, taking their pursuers by surprise and  causing a small opening for her to run. The thought of being separated from her brother without knowing if he was going to be OK is like a grip clawing on her chest, an additional struggle as she runs for what could easily be her life, but she has to trust that they will manage to evade these people without any heavy injuries. At the very least maybe they could get back to the restaurant, there were plenty of regulars that would make the pursuers back off, or even her parents. They may not have the most powerful abilities, but at the very least their pursuers would be outnumbered.

“Hang in there, Casey-” she murmured under her breath. The corners of her vision start to darken, as if the shadow is chasing her. Bailey's chest is heaving from the strain of having run for so long. She has never run this hard  before in her life, but she redoubles her efforts knowing her pursuer is getting dangerously close behind her.

* * *

She lets out a string of curses. She was sure the earthquake Casey caused would stun both of them for longer, but the male pursuer had barked an order at the other to keep on Bailey while he stayed with Casey. The earthquake only delayed them a few seconds before Bailey felt the pursuer hot on her tail.

She burst in to an empty clearing, looking around frantically. There is no one else except for her, but she had a feeling she hadn’t lost her pursuer that quickly. Gazing up at the clear California sky, which is tinted in pink and purple, tells her that the sun is almost down and it will be dark really soon.

Not good. She didn’t need to get lost in the woods with a dangerous person chasing after her.

Okay. Okay… Keep going, self. Bailey tried to hype herself up, sprinting to the left instead of going straight, hoping to at least cause a little confusion so she couldn’t easily be followed. She has to get back to her brother somehow. It was not a good idea to stay separated, especially if something happened.

Her mind starts reeling once more as everything that happened to them in the last twelve hours comes rushing back to her, disrupting her concentration for a moment. That moment is enough. Something wraps itself around her ankle and her momentum throws her forward.

"Oof!" Bailey stumbles face first, her head banging on the hard forest floor, spreading pain all over her body from the force of the impact.

"Ow..."

Her head throbs, spots dancing in her vision for a second before she realizes that she is suddenly surrounded in darkness. It starts as a lazy smoke-like fog setting across the forest floor before it grows thicker. An inky-black fog swirls on the surrounding trees, blocking everything from her sight.

"Oh my god...Please, please..." Heavy panic threatens to crush her chest, breathing  becoming such an effort as her heart pounds wildly in her chest. Bailey covers her nose and mouth, unsure of what the black fog could do to her if inhaled.

This is it. This is definitely how she is gonna die... Bailey thinks of Casey, fighting off someone else while trying to protect her. Him getting hurt or worse in a not failed attempt to keep her safe. Tears prick the corner of her eyes.

I'm so sorry, Casey...

As if she wasn't terrified enough, a pair of glowing blue eyes suddenly come into view through the thick wall of darkness, bright as a beam but definitely looking at her.

Soon, a shape finally emerges from the shadows. The girl is pale, almost like a vampire, dressed in a red-and-black striped sweater, black denim skirt, fishnet tights and combat boots. But the most striking feature is the girl's brilliant red hair, a stark contrast to the near-black shadows that surrounded them. A bright reminder of all the times Bailey has seen the girl out of the corner of her eye before she disappeared into thin air.

"D-Don't hurt… Don't hurt me..." She speaks in a raspy voice. "Please...I--I don't know what you want from us--We didn't do anything."

Bailey struggles to get to her feet, her entire body screaming in pain from both the run and the throbbing injury on her head. She doesn’t get that far up before the shadows creep onto her skin and, like a dozen solid hands, they clamp shut around her limbs. Bailey lets out a strangled noise as she’s pinned against the trunk of a giant tree behind her.

"No--N-No…” Bailey panics. With as much force as her beaten self can muster, she struggles against her bindings.

"You cannot outrun the shadows."

Bailey stops, looking at the girl's gleaming eyes in hopes to see some answers. The girl’s face is completely stoic, her tone almost bored. Those bright blue eyes that appeared to be glowing in the dark forest bore into Bailey’s brown ones.

The next sentence that comes out of the girl's dark-tinted lips sent a shiver down her spine.

"They will kill you."

_____That Morning_____

Have you ever thought about how cool it would be to be a superhero? To be someone that people look up to and admire? To protect people? In this day and age, super powers or abilities are fairly common, about 90% of the human population on Earth has some kind of power. Some kind of ability.

Ability range from super strength to clairvoyance to glowing in the dark, there were too many abilities to count, too many strong or strange powers to list. So many in fact that there were now special schools that specialized in training people with powers. One of which was Oliver M. Berry High School, it was small but one of the best and had a large roster of superheroes who called this school their alma mater.

Bailey looked up at the tiger statue in the courtyard, a tribute to the hero Wild Tiger, one of Berry most successful graduates and a legendary hero. Wild Tiger was one of the very first heroes before it became essentially an occupation, something people got formal training and were paid to do like any other job. He was Casey’s favorite hero. From a young age, Casey learned about his own ability and had been sent to attend a special middle school in order to start learning how to use it.

Bailey however, found herself perplexed by the acception letter in her hands.  She didn’t have an ability like Casey’s or really any ability of her own. She was a mimic, she could copy any ability so long as she touched the user. It was pretty limited in her mind. She didn’t really have the combat training to be great at catching people to copy their powers, nor was she interested in that. Usually she just ended up copying Casey’s ability or on the off occasion Rory’s which usually caused a bit of confusion and some broken furniture.

“Come on Bailey!” Casey calls as he starts towards the doors, “We have to get ready for Freshman Orientation!”

“Coming!” As Bailey jogged to catch up, Casey power walked excitedly through the halls, glancing at everything that decorated the school. Posters of heroes who graduated hung above bright red lockers. A few teachers smiled and waved as they helped direct the new students through the halls and toward the auditorium. Upperclassmen who were heading to homeroom tried to move around the big crowds.

“Casey, Look!” Bailey gestured to an older student with blue hair setting fire to a book while a few other students cheered her on, “A fire ability, I wonder how she uses it. Does the fire come from her own energy or does she pull it from the air around her? How do you think she controls the temperature?”

“Go touch her and copy her ability,” Casey smirked, “Then you’ll find out.”

Bailey almost considers it in her own excitement, but there was a… small issue.

“She kinda looks like she’d try to break my arm if I tried to touch her.”

Casey laughs as they continue down the hall. “I’m sure someone here will let you copy their ability for a while.”

“Morgan, put that fire out right now!” A teacher yelled as the blue haired girl put the flame out and ran with the rest of the leather-wearing gang down the halls, laughing as they went.

When the twins walked through the doors the auditorium is crowded with loud freshman talking and laughing, some showing off their abilities.

“Casey!” Bailey gestured to another student, a girl with a purple striped sweater and short brown hair, “Lightning.”

The girl was dancing a current of blue lightning across her fingers. A few students watched,

“I’ve finally found a way to charge my phone without frying it! Get ready Luis, low batteries aren’t going to keep me from our kicking your ass in TCaTF online now.”

“No way, I’m still gonna beat you!”

After a few moments an older student walks onto stage tapping on the microphone.

“Hello everyone and welcome to Oliver M. Berry High!” The crowd of freshman cheer and clap as Bailey and Casey take their seats near the back. “My name is Maria Flores and I’m your Student Council President.”

After a round of clapping Casey turns to Bailey excitedly.

“She’s part of the senior specialist team that helped take down Principal Isa last year!” Casey exclaimed in a whisper. “Her ability is Glyphs! She can create and manipulate glyph fields.”

“What’s a glyph?”

“Oh, it’s like a symbol? She can create make symbols appear that can alter a field. Like she can use a glyph to block and attack or use a glyph to slow time within the field. Stuff like that.”

Bailey nods as Casey turns back to the stage as Maria continues to talk.

“You know, she’d probably shake your hand if you wanted to copy her ability.”

“Her ability sounds complicated, I’d probably use it wrong and get myself stuck in a time glyph.”

“He he”

“-believe that all are welcome here. Regardless of ability, Berry High will take you in and teach you how to hone your power-”

Bailey around the room at the sea of Freshman. Her eyes stop on another first-year student sitting in the back of the auditorium. The girl only looks to be half-paying attention to the speech when the darkness shifts at her shoulders until Bailey feels herself staring into the dark eyes of what looked to be a cat sitting on the girl’s shoulder.

Bailey blinks and the shadow is gone.

“What do you think her power is?” Bailey whispered as Casey turned to her, she quickly gestures to the redhead. “It looks like the shadows moved around her for a second.”

“I don’t know.” Casey shrugged before grinning, “Go touch her.”

“Casey, I can’t just go up and touch people.”

“Right, you gotta try having tact.” Casey shook his head as Bailey pouts at him. “You could ask her, try to have a conversation with her. You might even make a friend.”

She snaps her head back to the front of the auditorium when she hears clapping and notices Maria take a bow before walking off stage. The principal comes up next, welcoming the freshman and setting into a speech of her own about the many heroes and talented people who graduated. As soon as the orientation is over Bailey stands with her brother. As they turn to leave, the girl Bailey had saw earlier seemed to had already disappeared.

“Oh, she left already.”

“You’ll probably see her again, she didn’t look like any of the upperclassman helping with the orientation, maybe you’ll have a class or something with her.”

“Yeah.”

“Then just walk up and tap her on the shoulder to copy her ability.”

“Stop it.” Bailey tried to grown with a grin.

“What class do you have first?”  Casey aks as he starts down the hall, digging his schedule out of his pocket. “OK, lockers first, mine is locker 201, so second floor, where’s yours?”

“280.”

“Aw, that’s all the way across the building.” Casey frowns, “I’ll meet you for lunch then? I want to hear about how your day goes.”

“OK,” Bailey smiled as the two go their separate ways. She glances at the locker numbers as she walks down the hall looking for hers. After a few moments, someone taps her on the shoulder.

“Hey Bailey!” Rory grinned as she fell into step next to her, bumping her lightly “It’s good to see you!”

“It’s good to see you too.” Bailey smiled back as the two walked, Rory had been Bailey’s neighbor and friend since they were children. Rory had developed her own powers early like Casey had, her super strength and speed made her almost an iconic hero when they were kids. Rory had gained a lot of popularity since coming to Berry High, and the two hadn’t hung out much during the last year.

“Hey are you going to join Theatre Club? We have a meeting today for new recruits if you want to come.”

Bailey smiled at the offer, she had completely forgotten about clubs with the upcoming school year and chatting with Casey about the sports he planned to play.

“Sure! Sounds like fun.” Bailey let out a breath as they turned the corner. “Hey, do you know where locker 280 is?”

“Oh, yeah! It’s this way!” Rory smiles as she leads Bailey down the hallways, chatting happily as she goes, telling Bailey about this teacher and that and asking about what classes she had this semester and who taught them. “Right here!”

Bailey dials in her combination and opens the locker. For a second the locker swings open too hard, almost being ripped from the hinges.

“Eek!”

“Careful!” Rory reached over and stopped the locker, “Sorry, copycat, I forgot that’s how your power worked.”

“At least we’re not playing Uno.” Bailey points out as she turns to her locker. The fresh newly painted metal box is spotless and ready to look after her books and supplies for the year.

“God, I almost forgot about that. I’ll never forget my moms face when you yelled Uno, slammed the card on the table, and made it collapse because you had copied my ability before we sat down to play.”

“I was so embarrassed,” Bailey laughed, “Your mom was so shocked, then she started laughing.”

Bailey shoves her books on the shelf and backpack on the hook before looking over her schedule, grabbing her books for her first class and smiling up at Rory.

“Ok valuable tour guide” Bailey smiled, “Any chance you know where the History room is?”

Rory laughs and wraps and arm over Bailey’s shoulders.

“You’ve got a lot to learn.”

Bailey laughs before noticing a flash of red out of the corner of her eye, she turns sharply, not seeing anyone there.

“What’s wrong?” Rory asks when she notices the turn.

“Oh, nothing. I just thought I saw someone.”

________________________________________

Classes are mostly boring. Teachers introducing themselves, passing out the course outlines and going over what they will be learning over the course of the semester. As soon as lunch rolls around Bailey heads over to the cafeteria, noticing Casey leaning on a locker a few feet away.

“Hey Casey!” Bailey greets as Casey jumps, causing the ground to shake for a second, “Hey, it’s just me!”

“Oh, sorry Bailey!” Casey rubs the back of his neck, “I’ve had this weird feeling that someone was following me, I thought you were trying to jump me.”

“Sorry, if I wanted to jump you I’d wait until we were home,” Bailey announced, before thinking over Casey’s words for a minute, “You thought someone was following you?”

“I don’t know, I keep seeing someone of the the corner of my eye? I think I’m just a little anxious about everything. It’s nothing to worry about.” Casey smiled and the two headed to lunch, Bailey shaking off a feeling of uneasiness that she felt as they walked over to the lunch line.

“Bailey, I’m glad I caught you!” Rory calls as she walked over, “Ajay had to reschedule the first Theatre Club meeting. He said he got an assignment, which is super strange since school’s barely started. But I’ll let you know when the meeting is.”

“Oh, OK, thanks!”

“You two should come sit with us,” Rory offered, “You can meet some of the other theatre kids before the meeting.”

The twins smiled at the gesture and after getting their lunches followed Rory over to the table were a few others were sitting.

“Casey and Bailey, meet the theatre club! This is Danielle, Clint, Natalie, Erin, Sydney, Trevor, and... hey, where did Ajay and Skye go?”  
“Ajay said he needed her for something. They bailed before lunch.” The chestnut haired boy who Rory introduced as Clint said before turning back to his sandwich.

“Oh.” Rory shrugged it off and took a seat next to Danielle as Bailey and Casey sat across from them, “Ajay’s the director of the Theatre Club, he does all the casting and such for the plays. We do one every Fall and Spring semesters.”

“We’ve got a cool group of abilities between all of us.” Danielle added, “Last year’s productions did really well, I can’t wait to see what you and Skye’s abilities will add to the performances.”

“Oh, uh,” Bailey stuttered. “I don’t really have an exciting ability. I can copy other people’s abilities.”

“That’s kinda cool though,” Natalie piped up, “You can have any power you want.”

“Not really, I have to touch the person whose ability I want to copy... and it wears off after like thirty minutes or so depending on the ability and how much energy it takes to copy.”

“So if you wanted to copy Danielle’s illusions for example, you just have to touch her?” Trevor asked from his seat at the end of the table, “That’s it, and you can do that for however long?”

“Yup, that’s it.” Bailey nodded before her eyes widened, “Illusions?”

“Yeah, I can create illusions, kinda like mind control I guess? I can only make a few people see an illusion at a time or I get a headache.” Danielle explained.

“We should play a game.” Natalie offered, “You should touch each one of us and guess our abilities.”

“That sounds exhausting, let’s do it.” Bailey grinned. Rory laughed and shook her head,

“How about during theatre club? That way you don’t get tired in the middle of the day.”

“OK,” Bailey replied determinedly as the theatre group continued chatting about the upcoming meeting and the play that they were doing for the Fall Semester. A romantic fantasy about a princess and a knight, The Magic Kingdom, Rory had told her.

The rest of the day went by quickly. Bailey couldn’t help but feel a little outcast as she watched students show off their abilities in the halls and in class. The day was a blur until the twins get off the bus in the late afternoon. Casey is talking about how his classes went. Bailey was only half-listening as they walked, focused on the script Rory had given her after school so she could impress the rest of the theatre kids at rehearsal. She’s between lines when Casey suddenly stops in the middle of the street. Turning sharply.

“Casey?” Bailey asked when she noticed the very serious look on Casey’s face. She turns in the direction that her brother is facing.

Bailey isn’t sure why, but they were being followed.

A tall boy with black hair and glasses eyes them with a serious expression. His eyes narrowed. Behind him was an all too familiar girl.

“Why are you following us?” Casey growled,

“You both have to come with us,” the boy says curtly, the setting sun causing a horrible glare over his glasses. Bailey couldn’t see the look in his eyes when he talked.

“We don’t have to do anything.”

“If you don’t come with us willingly, we’ll have to make you.”

Casey moves quickly at the threat, slamming his foot into the pavement, causing a shockwave to ripple through the earth towards the two.

“Bailey, run!”

________________________________________

"They will kill you."

Bailey can’t say anything. Her breath catches in her throat and tears threaten to run down her face. This was impossible, she couldn’t even reach her captor in order to copy whatever hellish shadow ability she was using right now.

“Please, I don’t want to die.”

“Then you have to come with us,” the girl reasoned. She sighs and shakes her head, turning on her heel. Bailey feels her arms move, the dark shadows binding her wrists together like tight shackles. The shadows push her upward until she’s clumsily on her feet.

“You’re going to walk back with me.”

Bailey glances around for a second as if to find an opening, but unfortunately her captor catches the motion.

“I can’t trust you, can I?” the girl asks as she snaps her fingers. Suddenly Bailey feels herself lifted into the air, the shadows underneath her shifting until they resemble some sort of horse-like creature. Bailey blinks as the creature moves forward towards the redhead like a dedicated mule. Without another word the girl starts walking back where they came from, the shadowy horse following behind her. Bailey examined the warped looking creature as they walk back in silence. Bailey feels like the silence is more unbearable then running. Her head still hurts and she feels like she’s going to throw up with all the knots in her stomach.

“I’m going to pass out.” Bailey mutters as she leans forward a little.

“That’s what happens when you hit your head.”

Bailey sees red for a second, the stress of having been chased only a few minutes ago hitting her full force. “That’s your fault!”

Her sudden yell causes the girl to stiffen.

“We were fine until you two came out of nowhere and attacked us!”

“We didn’t attack you,” the girl retorted “You attacked first.”

“You tried to kidnap us!”

“No we didn’t.” The girl sighs, clearly annoyed, “We told you that you had to come with us. We’re trying to help you.”

“By chasing me into the woods and slamming my head into dirt? Yeah, you’re real helpful.”

“...Sorry.”

Bailey’s stunned by the apology, staring at the back of the girl’s head as she walks. What kind of captor apologizes for hurting their target? But there’s just something about the girl’s tone... Bailey can almost feel that she means it. After a few seconds a shadowy figure forms at the girl’s shoulder.

It’s the cat. Black as night and looking more solid than it did before. The girl raises her hand, brushing the figures ears for a moment before going back to leading the shadow horse through the woods.

Bailey looks back at the shadow carrying her. She reaches her tied hands out and rests them against the figure, it feels strange. It feels like... concentrated air, as if someone pushed air together until it was solid. It was a confusing feeling. The shadow was cool in temperature, almost like pressing your hand against the wind when riding in a car.

“You know horses don’t look like this, right?”

The girl snorts.

“It’s not a horse.”

Bailey frowns, looking at the creature, trying to focus on it without her head hurting.

“What is it?”

“A thestral.”

This girl was confusing.

What villain created Harry Potter monsters in shadows? Bailey frowns as the two, well three counting the thestral, broke through the last of the foliage of the woods and onto the street.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Back to the school.”

“Why?”

The girl shrugs.

“You don’t know?” Bailey shook her head, “Why are you doing this?”

“Because Ajay asked me to.” The girl said simply, “He was given an assignment to watch you and you brother and bring you both back to the school if he thought there was trouble.”

Ajay? Bailey remembered that name, the director of the theatre club. So that meant-

“You’re Skye... Both of you are in the theatre club.”

“Yeah.”

“...Why did Ajay need to keep an eye on me and my brother?”

“I don’t know.” Skye shrugged.

“You helped him without asking?”

Skye shrugs again, “Ajay’s a friend, so I said I’d help him get you both back to the school unharmed.”

Bailey snorted, a retort on her tongue-

...Sorry

The girl’s apology flashed through Bailey’s mind again. The insult she was about to hurl at the other girl died in her throat.

“Is my brother OK?”

“Sure, he’s probably fine.”

Bailey felt a slight reassurance at the claim, even if Skye sounded completely aloof in saying it. After a rather long walk back to the school, the sky was already dark and the school seemed to be completely empty. Bailey feels herself being lowered to the ground until her sneakers touch the concrete of the sidewalk.

“Come on,” Skye leads the way through the campus. They enter through the main entryway and walk silently through the halls until Skye stops her at the Principal’s office. The second they walk through the door, Casey is already there, sitting on one of the chairs. The boy, Ajay, is leaning against the wall in the corner.

“Bailey! Are you OK?”

Bailey feels a bit of relief as she feels the shadows release her, Casey jumps up and runs to hug her. He pulls back after a second,

“You’re bleeding!”

Bailey had almost forgotten about the scrape on her head,

“It’s OK, I fell.” Bailey offers as she notices Principal Rivera sitting at her desk, looking at the two with a concerned look.

“I’m happy to see you  both alright, I am sorry about the hasty action, but we needed to get the two of you back here immediately.” Principal Rivera explained as she stood. “Please take a seat, I’m sure you both have a lot of questions.”

Bailey and Casey slowly take their seats, Bailey takes a second to see if her brother was injured, he was a bit scuffed up but he doesn’t look like he was hurt. That was a relief.

“Is there anything else we can do for you?” Ajay asked as he pushed off the wall.

“No need Mr. Bhandari, Thank you both for your timely work.”

Ajay nods and heads out the door, Skye follows as the door is closed.

“I’m sure you two are a bit confused.” Principal Rivera starts, “When you two were enrolled, we did have some people keep an eye on the two of you due to a security issue we had recently before the start of the year. We were concerned that the two of you would be in danger.”

“Why us?” Casey asks as the door opens,

“The Jenkins’ parents are here.” The secretary says as Bailey watches her parents fly through the door, her mother immediately wrapping her arms around her as their father did the same to Casey.

“Are you two OK? We came as quickly as we could!” Bailey hears her mother say as she pulls away and looks over her face, “You’ve got quite a scrape.”

“It’s nothing, I fell.” Bailey repeats the earlier claim, looking back over to Principal Rivera. Everyone seemed to go silent in the room for a minute.

“Mom, Dad, what’s going on?” Casey asked and it occurred to Bailey that neither of her parents had started questioning the principal about why the two had been brought back here.

“Principal Rivera, can we have a moment to talk to our kids?” Mr. Jenkins asked as Principal Rivera nodded before standing to leave, as soon as she exits the room she closes the door with a soft click.

“Mom? Dad?”

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell the two of you sooner,” Their father says as he sits on one of the free chairs, “We didn’t think it would come to this.”

“Come to what?” Casey asked, “Dad, what’s going on?”

“When your mother and I adopted the two of you, I want you to know that it was the happiest day of our lives. But there was something that the agency made us aware of before we adopted you. Your mother put the two of you up for adoption because she was terrified of your biological father. He’s a very bad man and as the two of you got older your mother and I lived in constant fear of him trying to get to you. It never happened and we were so happy to be able to raise you two without that fear. But it seems we aren’t going to be lucky that much longer.”

“What do you mean?” Bailey asked as she tried to process her father’s words,

“There was a security breach, and it seems that man is behind it. We became worried that he might try to contact you. So Principal Rivera arranged so that you two would be watched and then brought back to the school if it turned out it really was him who caused the breach.” Their father sighed, as if this was all too much for him, “It was, and now we have to take some extra precautions to make sure the two of you stay safe.”

“Who is he?” Casey asked, “Who’s so dangerous that you and mom are scared about us?”

Casey sounds a little annoyed, and Bailey can understand being a little mad that their parents hid this from him.

“His villain name is Lunatic, we don’t know much else about him,” their father reluctantly hands over that info. “All we know is that he is dangerous and we’re going to do everything we can to protect the two of you.”

“We promise.” Bailey hears their mother add, “We’ve decided that it would be best if you two stayed at the dorms here until we got a better idea of that’s going on.”

Their announcement is met by silence.

“Berry High is a very secure place, we know you’ll both be safe here.”

Casey is silent and Bailey looks over to see the confused and discouraged look on his face.

“We brought some of your stuff with you so you two can start moving in.”

More silence,

“Bailey, Casey, we understand that this is going to be hard for both of you. We don’t like this either, but we want to make sure you stay safe. We love you too so much, I don’t want to lose either one of you.”

“We love you too,” Bailey answered, “We’ll...figure this out, right Casey?”

Casey doesn’t say a word as he looks at the floor. Principal Rivera knocks at the door before re-entering,

“I hate to interrupt, but we should get these two settled soon before dinner.”

“Right,” Mrs. Jenkins agreed, “What do we have to do?”

“I have some forms I need signed, then we can get them set up.”


	2. First Steps

The night seemed to go by like a blur as Baily sat on the bed of her dorm room. She was exhausted, and she couldn’t get over the information her parents had told her and her brother about their biological parents. Casey seemed to have taken it worse: he didn’t speak to either of their parents for the rest of the evening up until they had to leave with the promise of bringing more of their things the next day.

Her older sister sense was telling her that that she should go check on him. He could probably use someone to talk to about all of this. Bailey stands from the bed and moves to grab her key to the newly acquired dorm. As she’s locking the door she notices one of the other dorm rooms opening. A figure steps out into the hallway and turns to lock their own door. Bailey immediately recognizes the red hair as the girl turns to her, noticing her stare.

“Hey,”

The greeting is casual as Skye turns and heads down the hallway towards the stairwell. Bailey does the same. Bailey wasn’t expecting much more from the other girl and is surprised when the girl slows her pace and turns to Bailey.

“How’s your head?”

“It’s...I’m OK, the nurse checked it over and says I’ll be fine,” Bailey responded. Skye nods before turning back to the stairwell, opening the door and starting down the stairs while Bailey Heads up to her brother’s dorm on the floor above her own.

“Cafeteria closes at eight” Bailey hears Skye call up to her, “If you and your brother are hungry.”

“Oh, thanks.” Bailey feels herself stuck in her place, a little confused by the other girl’s… kindness, she guesses. Or at least the girl is trying to be nice. She watches Skye move down the staircase until she’s out of view before continuing up the stairs to the boys’ floor. The dorms were fairly new at Berry and there was only one dorm building so far. The building itself was co-ed, however, each gender had their own floor where they were assigned. Girls took up the second and third floors, and boys were on the fourth and fifth floors. The first floor was gender neutral.

One thing Bailey noticed was that there weren't many people living in the dorms. Everyone seemed to have their own room and Bailey had only heard a few people coming and going as she unpacked.

Bailey hesitates at Casey’s door before raising her hand to knock.

“Casey? It’s me.”

“Come in.” Casey calls back in a monotone voice, and Bailey moves to open the door and lets herself in. Casey’s room was about the same size as Bailey’s was, but it felt much smaller with all his boxes still sitting in the center. Casey sat on his bed, staring at the boxes with a look on his face that told Bailey that he was deep in thought.

“You haven’t unpacked yet.” Bailey points out as she sits on the bed next to him.

“How can you be so cool about this?” Casey asks as he looks over at her. “Our parents just told us we’re related to a villain. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“It does bother me.” Bailey watches as Casey turns back to his pile of belongings. “It bothers me that they’ve had to make hard decisions in order to protect us. It bothers me that they never told us that they had to struggle with this before. But I don’t think that this changes much.”

“How am I supposed to be a great hero when my biological father is a villain?”

“The same way you were going to be a hero before. Nothing’s changed.” Bailey offered with a light smile, “You’re still the most heroic brother I know.”

“I know you’re trying to make me feel better.” Casey said, sighing and running a hand through his short brown hair. “But I think I want to be alone. I just want to sleep off today and see how I feel tomorrow.”

“OK.” Bailey stood up. “I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Yeah.”

Bailey sighed and walked back towards the door. She pauses as her hand rests on the doorknob.

“You’d make a really terrible evil twin, by the way.”

Casey snorts.

“Well you’d be even worse.” 

Bailey smiles as she lets herself out, turning to walk back towards her room. She shoves her hands in her pockets as she looks at the floor, exhausted. Maybe Casey had a point about sleeping off today. Bailey unlocks the door to her room, going inside and locking it behind her before changing for bed.

____________________________________

Bailey wakes up the next morning as the alarm on her phone goes off. With a groan, she reaches over and swipes the screen to stop the beeping before turning over to her back. She tries to conjure the will the get out of bed. 

Sighing, Bailey forces herself up and stretches. Her sleep hadn’t been as restless as she thought it would be and she was grateful that she felt somewhat rested after the stressful night she’d had. She hoped Casey was feeling better as well.

She should probably get changed and wash her face, as she’d forgotten to take her makeup off the night before. After throwing on some jeans and a t-shirt Bailey trudges  to the bathroom to fix her hair and face before she could get breakfast. The halls are humming with people getting ready, but when she walks into the bathroom there is only one other occupant fixing her makeup by the mirror.

“Hey,” Skye said as she moved away from the mirror, having finished putting on her makeup. 

“Morning.” Bailey flashed a smile as she walked over to the next available sink by the large mirror. She supposed since Skye lived in the dorms too they would be seeing a lot of each other like this. Bailey starts by washing her face, feeling a slight sting from the still healing cut on her forehead. After washing her face she fixes her hair and starts applying her usual touch of makeup in a comfortable silence.

Just as Bailey was getting ready to leave, she remembers that she forgot her dorm key in her room… and had effectively locked herself out.

“Oh no.” Bailey muttered to herself as she ran a hand through her hair. She turned to see Skye looking at her quizitively. “I kinda locked myself out of my room. I forgot my key when I came over...I’m not really used to having to carry a key around.”

Bailey tries to laugh it off, but she’s sure her smile doesn’t really help the brush of panic she felt in that second.

“I can get it for you,” Skye offers suddenly. Bailey stares at her for a minute.

“You can?”

“Yeah.” Skye puts the last of her makeup back in her bag before heading out the door with Bailey in tow. The two stop outside Bailey’s room.

“How are you going to-” Bailey starts asking before the black shadow cat forms at the Skye’s shoulder. It jumps down and stretches like a typical house cat. Then, the shadowy figure jumps through Bailey’s door in a puff of dark smoke. After a few moments, the dorm key slides out from under the door, the black cat returning to Skye’s shoulder a moment afterward.

“That was so cool!” Bailey gushed as she picked up her key. “You’re a lifesaver!” 

Bailey’s arms raise and she looks at the shocked look on Skye’s face for a moment before she wrapped her in a hug. Bailey’s a hugger, she can’t help it. With everything that happened the day before, this was easily the best thing that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

“Oof.” Skye stiffens at the contact, the black cat jumping off her shoulder and looking on from the floor with a startled look. Bailey feels a coolness rush over her as she feels herself copy Skye’s ability. It was a different feeling then when she copied Casey’s or Rory’s. She feels the power move through her and after a second a shadowy figure appears at her feet. The small dog wags its tail and chases after the shadow cat that Skye had conjured moments before.

After a moment she feels Skye awkwardly pat her on the back. Bailey pulls away and smiles.

“Thanks,” Bailey added, continuing to smile as Skye stares at her, confusion still written on her face. Bailey catches blue eyes glance down to the two shadow creatures chasing each other at their feet and it occurs to Bailey that she never explained her ability.  “Oh, sorry! I can copy people’s abilities if I touch them. I guess I copied yours.”

“Huh.” The cat jumps up to Skye’s shoulder as the dog that Bailey conjured stays on the ground with its head tilted. “Can you only copy what you see me do, or…?”

Bailey smiles. Usually she tried to describe her power as something like a Smash Bros game, where you pick a character and automatically know their attacks. Sometimes it was just easier to show people. 

Bailey thought for a second, pulling up the info about Skye’s ability that she copied with the power itself. She focuses on a spot a few feet behind Skye, feeling the temperature around her drop until her skin felt icy. A moment later she re-appeared in a cloud of dark smoke in the space she’d been focusing on.

“Ta-da!” Bailey struck a pose, grinning widely as she watched Skye turn to where she reappeared. Bailey moves her hands in a jazz-hand gesture as she stood there, coaxing the corners of the other girl’s lips to twitch up in amusement.

“Not bad, dork.” Skye shakes her head. Bailey smiles as she straightens her stance and takes a bow.

“Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all year.” Bailey walked back toward her door. She notices Skye turn and go down the hall, passing her own dorm on her way. “I’ll see you later?”

Skye stops for a second, hesitating before calling over her shoulder.

“See you around, Bailey.”

____________________________________

One of the classes Casey had been excited about was the basic training class all freshman had to take. It was similar to a gym class where the students focused on enhancing their abilities. The class usually separated people based on ability and allowed for group and one-on-one training. The gym was huge and Bailey could see the sophomore class had started warming up on the opposite side of the gym. 

“I’m actually really looking forward to letting off some steam,” Casey said, smiling as he headed towards the boys locker room to change into the standard gym attire. Bailey walked off to the girl’s locker room, where a few freshmen were talking and giggling at the entrance as they changed. 

The gym uniform at Berry consisted of black pants or shorts and a red long-sleeve shirt with a gold colored stripe across the chest and a tiger emblem. 

Bailey’s leaving the locker room when she notices a flash of red in her peripheral vision. She turns her head to see a familiar redhead leaning on the wall, watching as the other freshman goofed off before class started. 

“Hi Skye!” Bailey greets with a smile as she walks up.

“Hey.”

Bailey smiles and leans against the wall next to her. The two stand for a few seconds in a comfortable silence until the teacher walks into the gym. He glances around the room before speaking in a loud voice.   
“Alright everyone, we’re going to begin in a few moments. Freshmen who’ve gone through the summer course are to warm up outside with Coach Shaw. The rest of you stay here to be assigned to a training program.”

Skye pushes off the wall, “See you out there.”

“Oh, OK!” Bailey smiled as she watched Skye start out of the gym with a few other Freshmen and the Sophomore class. After a second Casey walks over and leans on the wall where Skye was a moment earlier.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“You and her are friends now?” Casey asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“I think so. She’s pretty quiet but I have a good feeling about her.” Bailey pushes off the wall at the same time as Casey does as they move to join the rest of the Freshmen lined up in the gym.

“Welcome to Duel Combat 101. My name is Coach Burke and I will be one of your teachers for this course. The first half of this course is designed to teach you basic hand-to-hand combat. We will also be training you on how to use and gain control of your natural abilities. For the first few classes, you will be paired with upperclassmen to help assess your abilities and set up a proper physical and mental plan for the rest of the semester. We’re going to start with some basic warm-ups before pairing you all with upperclassmen outside.”

The group are lead through several warm-ups, a few of the students sneaking their abilities in to make the exercises easier. The warm-up ends with a jog from the gym to the football field where the other students were already deep in a sparring matches while a few other students stood on the sidelines watching.

“Ok, Santiago, up to group one by the goalpost, Jacob, group 2.” Coach Burke called names and directed students to one of the groups of students. “Jenkins, Casey, let’s see how you do over in group two. Erin! We’re sending you another one.” 

One of the taller girls who was standing on the side turns and waves, signaling so Casey knows which group to go over to. Casey looks over at Bailey with a half-smile before running over to the group. 

“OK, let’s try you over in group five then.” Coach Burke says to Bailey then motioning over to a group on the other side of the field. “Talk to Ajay about getting started.”

Bailey nods and runs off in the direction of the group. Ajay is standing on the side much like Erin was at her group watching a few pairs of students spar. When Bailey gets closer she notices Skye sparing with an older Blonde student.

“Jenkins,” Ajay greets as Bailey slows down and stops a few paces next to him. “One moment.”

Bailey is quiet as she turns her head to see what Ajay was focused on. Skye and the blonde are in the middle of a sparring match. Bailey had turned just in time to see Skye try to throw a punch in the blonde’s direction in what she thought was an opening. The blonde easily dodged the throw, grabbing Skye’s arm and tossing her over her shoulder. Skye’s back hits the mat with a thump.

“Better,” Ajay calls. “Do it again. Mia, please try not to break the freshman.”

“I’ve got this, Ajay,” Mia insists, and she backs up a bit as Skye gets up. The two take a few steps apart before settling in a fighting stance again.

“Your ability is copying, correct?” Ajay asks as he turns his attention to Bailey. “You copy other people’s abilities when you touch them?”

“Yeah,”

“OK, I want to see how you handle different kinds of abilities.” He thinks for a minute. “Try copying my ability, and let me see what you can do with it.”

Ajay offers his hand as if going in for a handshake. Bailey reaches forward, clasping his hand in her own. The minute she does, she feels his ability copy into her, almost like an electric shock to her head. 

“OK, what should I do?” Bailey asks as she pulls her hand back. “Let’s see, I can pick up that rock or something.”

Bailey focuses on a rock just outside the gate of the football field. She focuses on the rock until she feels a surge of power flow through her, causing the rock to raise a few feet off the ground.

“Not bad,” Ajay commented. “You seem to have a quick understanding of the abilities you copy.”

“Yeah, sometimes I forget whose power I’m copying. Once I  copied Rory’s power and accidentally pulled a door off its hinges because I was in a hurry.” Bailey explains with a smile. She lets the power fade and the rock falls to the ground. 

“Can I try your… telepathy ability now?”

“Sure, go ahead, try to give...” Ajay pauses as he scans the area, “How about Clint? Tell Clint something with the telepathy.”

“OK!” Bailey looks over at the chestnut haired boy that looks to be taking a break on the edge of the group. She can hear the slight murmur of his thoughts in her head.

_ Rory’s hair looks so nice today. _

_ No slacking, Clint! _ The boy jumps and looks over at Bailey and Ajay sheepishly. He waves his hand over and goes over to another one of the sparring circles.

“What’d you tell him?” Ajay asks, snickering as Bailey turns back to him. 

“To stop slacking. It felt like something you would say to him.”

“How do you know? We’ve just met,” he pointed out, eyebrows raised.

“You can tell a lot about someone when you share an ability with them. Even if it’s only temporary.” Bailey looked back to the group of people. 

“An interesting mindset.” Ajay mused as he thought for a minute. Bailey looks over and sees Skye manage to knock Mia off balance with a low kick to the ankle. Mia falls back and hits the mat, albeit much softer than Skye had before.

_ Good job, Sk- _

Skye turns toward them sharply, her arm shoots out and a shadow hurdles at her. Bailey almost doesn’t hear the echo of Skye’s thought before Ajay pulls her out of the way.

_ Get out of my head! _

The tone of the thought startles Bailey more than the shadow as a flash of light shatters the attack. Bailey looks over to see Mia had knocked Skye back on the mat with a well placed kick to the back of the knee, her hand glowing as the light that shot out at Skye’s shadow faded. 

“Hey, take it easy,” Bailey hears Mia say as she rests a hand on Skye’s shoulder.

“You can’t just do that!” Ajay yells and it takes Bailey a second to realize that it’s directed to her. “You can’t just go into someone’s head like that. Not here, and not without a reason.”

“So-Sorry.” Bailey stuttered, “I...didn’t know I was in her head.”

The anger on Ajay’s face dissolves into something stressed as he runs a hand through his hair. 

“It’s OK, you didn’t know. Please, though, try to be more careful in the future.”

“OK. I’m really sorry.” Bailey turned and looked over at Skye and Mia. She feels even worse about it when she notices how pale Skye had gone. It must have been scary, to have someone suddenly in your head when you were trying to focus on something else. Skye’s reaction, in Bailey’s opinion, was warranted. 

“You should go apologize to Skye.” Ajay says. “Later, though. Give her space for now. Come on, I want to see how you do with one more thing before we have you switch powers.”

“OK.” Bailey murmurs as she follows Ajay away from the group. After a few moments of silence Ajay speaks up.

“Every ability has consequences. You need to take those into consideration when you copy. There’s another power that I have, that I don’t want you to copy under any circumstance.”

“What is it?”

“When I’m in someone’s mind, I have the power to disrupt their ability. I can prevent them from using it for a short period of time. But it comes at a price, and I’m going to tell you what it is because I don’t want you to try attempt to do it without being completely aware of what it will do.”

“Ok,”

“It will erase part of the person you’re affecting’s mind.” Ajay stops walking and turns to Bailey. “It usually affects memory. Depending on how you use the ability you can erase a large or small chunk of the person’s ability.”

“So you can stop someone from using their power, but they forget things?” Bailey asked, clarifying what Ajay was telling her.

“Yes, it can be small, like maybe they don’t remember the last few minutes, or the last hour. But if you don’t do it properly… they can lose a large chunk of their memory.” Ajay finishes the sentence in a much quieter voice. “You can make people forget days, weeks, or you can wipe someone out of their memory entirely.”

“That’s a big side effect,” Bailey stated as she looked down for a moment. “Have you ever done that? Tried to stop someone from using their power and made them forget things?”

“I’ve only used it twice.” Ajay admitted, looking ashamed. “The first time was the worst. I did more damage than I thought was possible and I promised to never use the power again. But there was… an incident where I was forced to use the power again.”

“I’m sorry you had to do it.” Bailey offered. Ajay looked over at her and seemed to shake himself out of his thoughts. 

“Let’s move on.”

____________________________________

Rory sighs as she turns the corner to the library to meet up with Ajay to talk about the Theatre Club meeting that he had wanted to reschedule. She figured she could catch him in the library between classes. It wouldn’t be hard to find him since school had just started and the library was practically a ghost town. There was almost no one there, as expected, and Ajay was seated in his normal spot at one of the desks. Rory smiled and walked up.

“How’s math going?” Rory asked with a smirk. Ajay turned to her with an annoyed glare.

“Fine.” A lie.

“Great. So did you figure out when the Theatre Club would be meeting this week?” Rory asked, tilting her head. “Danielle and the others are asking.”

“We have the theatre Friday as long as Mr. Olsen is free. I emailed him this morning to confirm.” Ajay pulled out his phone for a second to check his email. “He hasn’t gotten back to me yet, but I’m sure we’ll be good for Friday after school.”

“Awesome.” Rory took a seat across from Ajay. “So what did you get pulled into doing?”

“I can’t really say, it’s classified.”

“By who?”

“Principal Rivera. She said it would be in everyone’s best interest if we kept everything between the individuals involved.”

“Ooooh, serious,” Rory teased as Ajay rolled his eyes. “Speaking of serious, can I get a new copy of the script for the Fall Production? I gave Danielle my copy because Trevor accidentally set hers on fire. It’s a long story.”

“I can feel the headache already,” Ajay scoffed as he shifted through his bag and pulled on of the spare scripts. “Here. Try not to lose this one.”

“Got it, Director Boss.” Rory saluted as she stood up. 

“Don’t call me that.”

“Ok Boss Director, I’ll assemble everyone for rehearsal Friday.” Rory turned to leave with a wave. She catches Ajay shaking his head again before he goes back to his notes. 

Rory left the library and started heading back towards the campus parking lot where she parked her faithful metal steed. She turns the corner to the Sophomore lot when she sees Bailey carrying several bags and heading towards the dorm building. Rory chuckles to herself when she sees Bailey struggling to balance, then decides to help her. With a bit of her super speed she rushes over just in time to catch one of the bags as it slips from Bailey’s grip.

“Hey Bailey!” Rory greeted with a smile as she takes two more of the bags from Bailey’s arms, “Are you heading home? I can give you a ride if you need one.”

Bailey looks at her with a strange expression for a second before looking away.

“Actually, I live here now.” Bailey gestured to the dorm building and Rory looks over at it, confused. “It’s a long story,” Bailey explained.

“I have time,” Rory offered. “Come on, I’ll help you carry things up.”

Bailey leads Rory through the first floor of the building to the stairwell and up to her floor. They walk silently down the hall and towards the common area. Rory looks around, seeing the common area looking like a living room with a kitchen set up on one side.

Bailey directs her to place the bags on the table as she goes through them. She goes into a story about how her and Casey were now living in the dorms because of their biological father. Rory listens as Bailey talks, watching as she wordlessly moves through the kitchen, getting bowls and measuring cups from the cupboards.

“I talked to Mia today and she said we were allowed to use the common kitchen, so I thought I’d do some stress baking.”

“You always do resort to stress baking.”

“It’s just frustrating. Casey’s really upset about everything, and I guess so am I, but I can’t stand not being able to go home until this ‘security threat’ thing is taken care of. I had to ask Principal Rivera to have someone get ingredients for me so I could do some baking to de-stress.”

“I’m really sorry, I had no idea.”

“It’s not your fault. I should have told you something was up sooner, but I was trying to keep an eye on Casey and make sure he was handling this OK.”

Bailey goes to work measuring and mixing dry ingredients in a bowl. The two falling into a calm silence for a few minutes.

“How is he?”

“He’s confused and angry, but I think training today helped. It’s not so bad here, but it’s frustrating that we can’t leave until we get cleared.”

Rory nodded as she watched Bailey get out all the things she needed to bake.

“Let’s talk about something happy,” Rory offered. “What are some good things that have happened since you got here?”

“Well, I had my first training session today,” Bailey offered as she reached over for the sugar.

“Oh, who do you have as your mentor?”

“I think Ajay’s overseeing my training for now until we get someone else. He said he knew a few people who might be a good match.”

“Did you make any new friends in the dorms?” Rory asked. “Do a lot of people live in here?”

“There aren’t a lot,” Bailey admitted as she set the bowl aside and started cracking some eggs. “I did meet someone here though. Skye lives a few doors down from me, I see her around a lot.”

“I know Skye, she’s one of the new tech kids. Trevor had her helping with setup a few days ago.”

“Yeah, I thought we could be good friends, but I think I ruined it.” Bailey’s face falls. “I kinda messed up. Ajay let me copy his ability and I was using his telepathy to talk to people. I forgot I was doing it and I tried to say something to Skye. I think I scared her because she freaked out.”

Rory’s face fell at Bailey’s story. She thinks for a second before leaning forward, resting her elbows on the table.

“I don’t know Skye that well, but I think she’d understand if you talked to her about what happened. You didn’t mean to scare her and I’m sure she’ll understand that.” Rory offered the younger girl a smile. “You could sweeten the deal too, throw in some of whatever you bake. Baked goods always make me forgive someone.”

“I know, I’ve been baking your apologies for years.”

“And they always work,” Rory laughed, watching as Bailey smiled a little before going back to her batter. It wasn’t just the sweets that made Rory accept the apologies, but the sweet offering did make her feel better about things. 

____________________________________

Bailey chats with Rory for a while longer before Rory leaves to go home. She’s left alone in the common area looking down the hall every few minutes to see if Skye was making her way back to her dorm. Bailey wraps some of the chocolate chip cookies in some tin foil and puts them aside for the other girl as part of her apology as she cleaned up the kitchen. After about twenty minutes she hears the door to the stairwell open and close. She whips her head to see a shot of bright red walking down the halls and quickly grabs the wrapped cookies, running  to hopefully catch the girl before she goes into her dorm. 

Bailey tries not to be weird about hurrying down the hall. Skye’s unlocking her door when Bailey walks up.

“Hi Skye.”

The other girl jumps a little at the greeting and looks over at her.

“Hey.”

“I wanted to apologize for this morning.” Bailey started, feeling herself slowly going into rant mode. “I wasn’t used to Ajay’s power, and I shouldn’t have been messing around with it so much. It wasn’t cool of me to go into your head, and I’m really sorry.”

“We’re cool.”

“Really?” Bailey asks as the other girl nods. Bailey lets out a sigh of relief before remembering she hadn’t offered Skye the cookies yet. “I made these for you too.”

Bailey watches the confused look form on Skye’s face. The redhead seemed completely thrown by the gesture and Bailey feels herself go back into rant mode to try to cut the awkward tension. “I kinda stress bake and I was worried about everything and being here and I just… I didn’t want to mess things up with the first friend I’ve made here.”

Skye’s silent for a moment, still trying to process.

“I mean, not the school here, but It’s just been harding having to move here after everything and not being able to go home because of stupid stressful things and I-,” Bailey tries to explain, but Skye cuts her off.

“Friend?”

“Oh, well yeah. I consider you a friend.”

“... I’m not really good at the ‘friend’ thing.”

“It’s ok, I’m not good at a lot of things. But I think we could be good friends,” Bailey insisted as she pushed the tin foil still in her hands at the other girl.

“Ok,” Skye says awkwardly as she takes the tin-wrapped cookies that were being thrust at her.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Bailey asked as she backed up to her own dorm.

“Yeah.”

Bailey smiles and turns to walk back to her dorm.

“Bailey.”

Bailey stops and looks over at the other girl.

“A lot of people are here because we can’t go home. It’s okay. It’s not your fault you have to be here.”

Bailey watches the other girl retreat to her room, hearing the words echo in her head before she smiles and goes into her own room.

____________________________________

Casey finishes off the last of the energy drink he bought at the cafeteria, typing away at his computer in the darkness of his dorm room. He tries not to shake the floor as he taps his foot against the floor impatiently, waiting for the web page to load.

_ Search: Lunatic _

Casey searches through news articles, blogs, anywhere he can find with info about the villain.

“Who are you?”

____________________________________

Across town, a red haired woman nurses a glass of red wine, looking out the window at the moon for a few moments.

“How was the meeting?” a white haired man asks gruffly as he enters the room. He walks over to the bar and pours himself a drink before turning to sit in the very expensive armchair.

“It went well,” The woman hums with a sip of her wine. “Roger, dear, it looks like we’re due for a new moon.”

“It would seem so.”

“Our client had an interesting request, and I think the new moon would be a good time to fulfill that request.” The woman smiles. “After all, it is the darkest night of the month.”


	3. In The Dark

“What are you doing tonight?” Casey asked as the twins sat across from each other in the cafeteria. Breakfast today was various egg dishes and extra helpings of bacon. They had managed to survive their first week living at school, and it was unusual for them to not have a shift helping their parents at the diner of the weekend. Friday night was busy and they usually bussed and waited on tables. Sometimes their dad would let them help in the kitchen.

“The theatre club is holding auditions after school today.” Bailey reached into her bag to pull out the script she had been reading over the night before. “I’m meeting Rory to go through lines one more time before rehearsals.”

“Break a leg,” Casey smiles as he shoves more eggs into his mouth. “Maybe I’ll hang out with Lorenzo or something. He usually stays late to use the gym.”

“You could meet Rory and I for dinner if you want? She offered to stay tonight for a movie night. Since we can’t go out she brought a bunch here. We’re using the big TV in the common room.”

“I’ll think about it. Is it just the two of you?”

“I don’t know, I could ask Skye to join us, she’s on the floor too.”

“You sure she wants to third wheel your movie date with Rory?” Casey wiggled his eyebrows. Bailey sighed. She had, admittedly had a crush on Rory when they were kids. Rory was just always so cool. She developed her powers at a young age and always used them to help other people. If the other kids were having trouble Rory would race in like a real hero. Bailey wasn’t sure if those feelings were still there. She didn’t feel as… anxious or starstruck about Rory anymore. 

It was all a little confusing.

“It’s not a date!”

Casey just chuckles before finishing off his bacon and standing up. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”

_____________________________________

After classes Bailey rushed over to the theatre for rehearsals. As soon as she turns the corner she sees Rory waiting by the doors.

“Hi Rory!” 

“Hey! Good timing, the techs are still setting up so there’s time for us to go through a couple scenes before auditions start.”

“Awesome, thanks for offering to help me. With everything going on I haven’t been able to rehearse as much as I wanted.”

“No problem! It’d be so cool if we got to perform together!” Rory smiled brightly as she took out her script from the bag slung over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s try the scene on page 6 first. I bet we can nail it this time.”

Page 6 was a dialog between the knight and the princess. Rory read for the Knight, a part that she had told Bailey she wanted to get. Bailey, on the other hand, wasn’t sure what role she wanted. She practiced reading for the Princess and the Witch since they were her top two choices. 

“ _ Stop following me! I don’t need your protection. I can handle myself _ !” Bailey recited her line easily. She fixed her face into an annoyed expression as she turned to Rory, who was smiling at her with her hands in front of her, one on her hip as if she were resting it on an invisible sword.

“ _ Is that so _ ?” Rory asks in an amused tone, the left side of her lips quirking up a little more. “ _ I look forward to you proving it then, Princess _ .” 

Bailey lets out an exaggerated huff, turning around and crossing her arms. Before they can go farther in the scene, Danielle pokes her head out.

“Hey Rory, can you help some of the techs move some of the heavier pieces? We’ve been having Skye shadow-travel some of them, but I think it’s wearing her out and Ajay wants to have her help with the Witch auditions,” Danielle says with a sickly sweet smile. She gives Bailey a strange look for a second. 

“Oh, sure!” Rory turns back to Bailey. “Sorry, I thought we’d have more time to go over lines.”

“It’s OK.” Bailey smiles. “Thanks for helping me. I think I’ve got them.”

Rory grins before putting her script into her bag and heading inside the  auditorium . Bailey goes to follow but is stopped by Danielle.

“Are you auditioning for the Princess?” Danielle gives Bailey a strange smile, one that’s almost condescending underneath the false kindness she’s presenting. 

“I’m reading for both the Princess and the Witch. Ajay said that was OK?” Bailey didn’t mean to make it sound like a question, but the way Danielle is looking at her confuses her a little.

“Oh, okay. I think you’d make a better  _ Witch _ . But we’ll see how you do in auditions.”

As Danielle turns and heads into the room, Bailey stands there for a second before following. As soon as she enters the room she sees a bunch of the theatre kids talking or helping the techs move boxes and crude pieces into place. One of the techs (Trevor, Bailey thinks his name is,) was testing the lights. Electricity sparked across his fingertips as he hovered his hands over the board. After a few seconds the fixtures above the stage light up and some of the other techs cheer.

“Finally! Ajay, we got lights up.” Trevor announces as Ajay stands from his seat, clipboard in hand.

“This old theatre tech,” Bailey hears Rory complain. “Every semester the techs have a fit trying to get stuff to work again.”

“Because it’s off for so long?” Bailey asks. Rory nods her head.

“We think so. They got it running pretty quick today. Still, it would be nice to have some new boards for lights and effects.”

“Attention everyone.” Ajay calls from the stage. “We’re starting now. Everyone reading for the Knight or Princess roles to the stage. Everyone else take a seat and wait to be called.”

A few people walk to the stage. Bailey notices Danielle walk up along with Natalie, who offers Bailey a friendly smile as she stands next to her.

“The Prince or Princess’ ability to nurture the land and cause it to grow and prosper will be acted out by Sydney. She’ll be proving her ability for the Princess. The Knight’s ability will be adjusted with whoever is cast,” Ajay announces before turning to the dark-haired girl sitting on the stage, “Ready, Sydney?”

The girl claps her hands together excitedly before jumping up. “Ready to roll!”

Natalie and an older boy take the stage to read first. Sydney walks across the stage to put a flower pot filled with soil on the stage on top of one of the black cubes that the techs had arranged. 

“Start from the dialog on Page 12. Jordan, you’re first.” 

The older boy smiles charmingly at Natalie as he delivers his line.

“ _ I must say, Princess, I’m impressed. _ ” 

“ _ You’ve seen nothing yet _ .” Natalie holds her hand over the pot and lets out a short battle cry. Bailey sees Sydney flick her wrist off stage. A second later a small tree begins growing from the pot. The branches twist and turn before budding with beautiful multi-colored flowers. 

“Wow.” Bailey muttered, “I really want to try her ability.” She hears Rory giggle from her place next to her. 

“That can be your motivation to get the Princess role.”

Bailey watches a few other people read for different parts. After a few readings and some sighing from Ajay he calls that Bailey and Rory will read together for the same scene. Bailey bounces up onto the stage and walks over to Sydney excitedly.

“I can do this one!” Bailey raises her hand as if asking for a high five as Sydney gives her a confused look for a moment.

“Bailey can mimic! She really wants to use your ability.” Rory calls over with a laugh. 

“That’s so cool!” Sydney smiles, grinning as she accepts the high five. Bailey feels a shot of warmth rush through her veins as Sydney’s hand touches her for a brief second. “I feel kinda honored that you want to use my ability.”

“It’s so cool though!” Bailey gushes a little before Ajay clears his throat. Bailey turns and heads back to her place on stage ready to go through the scene with Rory.

“ _ I must say, Princess, I’m impressed. _ ” Rory’s smile is contagious as she falls into character effortlessly. 

“ _ You’ve seen nothing yet _ .” Bailey raised her hand to the new pot, she feels the power flow warmly through her fingertips as the small plant bloomed in the bot, she mimics the energy so the branches and flowers bloomed in beautiful color before her eyes. Bailey feels herself smirk a little in character.

“ _ This kingdom is mine to nurture and grow as I see fit and I will not allow that Witch to tell me what to do. She will not manipulate or control me into handing over even a clover of this kingdom to her. _ ”

Rory looks at her then with a look that Bailey could only describe as endearment. The smile on her face got softer and her eyes seemed to sparkle at her after her monologue.

“ _ You amaze me, Princess _ .” The line is given in such a soft voice that if they weren’t doing a scene Bailey might have believed it. 

“Thank you.” Ajay calls, “Next we will be doing auditions for the Witch. Bailey, why don’t you start since you’re already up there. Danielle will read for the Princess. Skye will provide the ability for the witch.”

Bailey notices Skye had been stationed by the soundboard typing furiously on the connected laptop before the sound of her name. She stands and makes her way to the opposite side of the stage as Sydney, staying out of sight from the audience. Bailey smiles before jobbing over, raising her hand again to switch powers. Skye stares for a second before she understands, meeting Bailey’s hand in a half-hearted high five.

“OK! What page Ajay?” Bailey asks enthusiastically as she walks back into place as Danielle comes to the stage and stands beside Rory.

“Page 24. Bailey, your line first.”

“Yup!”

“Are you sure? Don’t want you tearing down the set with Skye’s ability.” Danielle asked in a slightly condescending way. Bailey ignores the tone.

“I’ve copied Skye before! Don’t worry!” Bailey smiles before she takes a second to get into character. 

“ _ This Kingdom would have been mine had your father kept his promise! _ ”

“ _ No, half of the kingdom would have been yours if you had kept your promise! _ ” Danielle receites keeping a fairly neutral expression on her face. 

“ _ Now never show your face here again, or Princess Abigail and I will make you regret it _ .” Rory glared fiercely, raising her hand to her imaginary sword as she moves to place herself between Bailey and Danielle as described in the stage directions.

“Thank you.” Ajay cut off before Bailey delivered her next line. “Now I want you to continue that scene but with Bailey as the Princess and Danielle as the witch.”

Danielle scowls for half a second before she manages to school her features.

“Interesting choice, okay.” She moves to take Bailey’s place as Bailey moves to take her place behind Rory. Rory flashes her a wink as they get ready to continue the scene. Danielle takes a moment to get into character, a dark smile flashing across her face.

“ _ Brave words. But you're forgetting the powers I possess _ .” Danielle changes her stance and moves her arm as if casting a spell. “ _ Wormswood, bane, and sinner bail. Hatch dreadful designs unto this child. To sow your Majesty’s regret. The Knight’s pure love she’ll soon forget. _ ”

Bailey catches Skye’s eyes glow as dark shadows cross the stage from Danielle to Bailey like dark fire. The shadows spiral around Bailey for a moment, harmlessly darkening the area around her. Bailey morphs her face into a surprised expression as her character takes the effect of the spell.

“ _ My love… _ ” Bailey reaches towards Rory who mimics her shocked expression.

“ _ Princess Abigail, I- _ ” 

“Thank you.” Ajay takes a few notes on his clipboard before standing up. “That’s a wrap. Casting will be posted on Monday.”

Bailey let out a breath as she hopped off stage and went to retrieve her things.

“That looked really good Bailey!” Natalie said as she walked over. “You’re reaction to that spell was amazing. I would have been freaking out!”

“Danielle did a pretty amazing job with the line.” Bailey offered as she sees Danielle scoff at her before turning to leave.

“Those shadows really add something to the Witch’s power. It’s like a power a real villain would have!” 

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. It’s like a typical villain power to control darkness. Like sucking out the hope and light from everything. It adds a sinister feeling to the Witch don’t you think? I would be pretty scared if shadows were coming at me like that.” Natalie explains as Bailey puts the remainder of her things in her bag. She looks up to answer when she notices Skye standing by the soundboard. Her hand is resting against the laptop mid-close and it’s clear she overheard some of the conversation. 

_ It’s a power a villain would have _

_ A lot of people are here because we can’t go home _

It hadn’t occurred to Bailey until that moment that maybe her and Casey weren’t the only ones that had a villain as a parent. Maybe Skye did too and that was why she was in the dorms.

“I think it depends on who’s using the power, not what the power is.” Bailey hears Rory say from behind her. She looks over to Rory with a smile before standing up with her bag. She looks back over in Skye’s direction to see her no longer by the soundboard. A flash of red catches her attention as the side door closes. “Ready to go Bailey?”

“I’ll be right back.” Bailey rushes out the side door and looks around. She catches sight of the red-haired girl leaning against the wall a few feet away, the dark cat-like shadow resting on her shoulder as she stared at the screen of her phone.

Bailey stared at the cat for a moment. It was a form that Skye seemed to create a lot. She’s seen the girl a dozen times with the dark feline at her ankles or on her shoulder or sitting at her desk while she worked. The small creature would appear in varying degrees darkness like a smoky apparition. Bailey felt herself wondering if the creature was solid like the shadow that carried her back to the school when her and Skye first met.

Without thinking Bailey takes a few steps closer to inspect the shadow as the other girl stood there completely unaware of Bailey’s presence, far too absorbed in her own head.  The cat flicks its tail as it sits on Skye’s shoulder leaning over as if too look at the screen of her phone. Without thinking Bailey reaches forward to touch the dark creature, surprised when her hand phases through the shadow easily, fingertips brushing the side of Skye’s face as the cat disappears.

Skye jolts and turns to her surprised.

“I-” Bailey hesitates, realizing she didn’t really know what to say that wouldn’t sound stupid. “I was curious if the cat was solid like the horse.”

“... Thestral” Skye corrected as she stared at Bailey with confusion. 

“Right, thestral,” Bailey rubbed the back of her neck, searching for some other topic. “I was thinking about what you said yesterday. About how a lot of people who stayed in the dorms couldn’t go home…”

Skye waits as Bailey tries to collect her thoughts. 

“My brother and I are here because our biological father is a villain, and anything past that no one is telling us. We ended up here because there was a security breach and people think he might be responsible. We can’t leave the campus until the threat is resolved. We’re not even allowed to call our parents until further notice. It’s  been… really hard. I guess, it made me feel a little better when you said that. I didn’t think that other people might be in similar situations.”

“You didn’t have to follow me and try to make me feel better about what Natalie said.” Skye says after a minute. Her hand moves up automatically and the shadow cat reappears at her shoulder and nudges against it. “I’m used to it. I’m aware of how my ability looks to other people.”

“I think it’s cool,” Bailey says without thinking. Skye looks up at her a bit surprised. “There’s nothing villainous about a cute little cat.”

“Heh,” Skye scoffs a bit and shakes her head, “Not my most terrifying shadow by far.”

“But you always seem to have the cat around you.” Bailey points out, “You could turn it into anything you wanted, but it’s always a cat.”

Skye seems to think about that for a moment before answering.

“I always wanted a cat as a kid.” Skye said softly, “This was the closest I’ve ever came. The first thing I could mold from shadows… My mother  _ hated _ it.”

“Why?”

Skye doesn’t answer and instead sighs, her stoic expression dropping a little, revealing a bit of a sadder expression. “My parents aren’t villains if that’s what you were wondering… They’re just not good people. My mother thought I was wasting my time by making ‘stupid shadow puppets’. Her version of training was… not the most pleasant.”

The two stand in silence for a minute.

“I’m going into town… did you… need anything?” It’s awkward and Bailey’s a little surprised that the other girl offered. Skye moves her hand to play with the ends of her hair as she speaks, fidgeting in the silence that follows.

“Oh,  no I’m good. Thanks though.” 

Skye nods and turns to leave. After a second Bailey thinks of something.

“Skye!”

Skye turns to look at her over her shoulder. 

“Could you… maybe… stop by the Golden Griddle and check on my parents? I mean it’s Friday and that’s usually a busy day and my brother and I are usually there to help them but since we can’t be-” Bailey feels her eyes burn a little, she felt guilty for some reason. Guilty that she couldn’t be there for her parents to help them with the restaurant. 

“Sure,” 

“Really? You don’t have to if it’s out of your way.”

“It’s OK.” Skye assures as she waits for a second. “Anything else?”

“No, just that.” 

Skye nods and turns to walk away. Bailey watches her for a minute before turning back to meet up Rory. The other girl waited for her in the theatre room sitting on one of the seats.

“Ready to get dinner?” Bailey asked as she walked closer. “I told Casey he could meet us so we could eat together. I hope that was OK.”

“Sure. I don’t mind.” Rory flashed as smile as the two headed towards the cafeteria. They chat for a bit as they walk. 

“So are we early or-”

“No, there aren’t that many people in the dorms so this is about as crowded as it gets.” Bailey explained as she looked around at around 20-30 students who lived on campus. “It’s weird because I’m pretty sure Skye and I are the only ones on our floor.”

“Hey Bailey.” Casey called as he walked over, his hair damp and dressed in his comfortable post-workout clothes. “Hey Rory.”

“Hey Casey! How was your work-out thing with Lorenzo?”

“Heh, you always ask about that and then you act bored-”

“I’m trying to be a good sister!” 

“You two are cute.” Rory laughs and shakes her head, “Come on, you two can bicker after we get food.”

_____________________________________

Skye was running late. She knew she was.

Mia had already started texting her letting her know she was out past curfew and asking her if everything was okay. It’s hard not to stay out later then she should. The darkened sky made her feel a little more anxious and a lot more buzzed than normal. There was something about natural darkness that always made her feel more energized than just shadows or dark buildings. 

She’s about fifty feet from the school gate when she feels it.

It’s a familiar coldness that settles on the back of her neck and causes her heart to race. An instinctual fear creeping into her being.

“Turning in so soon?” 

That voice.

Skye tries not to stop. She thinks of making a mad dash for the school, but she doesn’t get to live out that plan before she feels something grab her by the arm, nails digging into the fabric of her sweater and holding her in place.

“You’ve gotten so rude.” 

Skye tries to avoid looking her mom in the eyes as she forcefully turned to face her. She was all too aware of her mother’s ability. The offhand comment is said with a very familiar look of disappointment. Her mother seemed annoyed at having to be near her.

“It’s the darkest day of the month, and you’re not going to enjoy it.” Her mother shakes her head, “Stupid girl. Scared of her own shadows.”

“Let me go.” It’s hardly a demand, but her mother still gives her a look of anger at being spoken back to. 

“I wish I could, but I have a bit of an issue.” Her mother started as her other hand came up. Skye feels her mother’s artificial nails bite into her skin as her mother forces her jaw up so she has to look at her. “I have a client who’s paying me a nice sum for a little distraction. Now be a good girl and let the shadows  _ consume _ you.”

The pupils of her mother’s eyes turn a horrible bloody red as Skye feels the fear in her chest intensify. The word darkens around her as panic starts to set in.

_____________________________________

“Hey Rory,” A voice calls from behind them. Bailey turns to see a familiar blonde upperclassman.

“Hey Mia, what’s going on?” Rory asked with a smile.

“Have you seen Skye?” Mia asked, a worried expression appearing on her face. 

“She said she was going into town for a bit,” Bailey offered. The answer seems to only increase the worry on Mia’s face. 

“That’s weird. She’s usually back before curfew.” 

“I thought curfew for the boarding students was nine?” Casey asks from his seat. “ That’s what I heard from the other students in the dorms.”

“For most students yes, but there are some exceptions. Skye’s is capped at six for now because of her power. It’s stronger when it’s dark out, and since she can’t fully control it yet, she has a shorter curfew. I got an alert on my phone that she didn’t swipe in to the dorms.” 

“Why?” Bailey asked completely baffled. “I mean I get why they have to keep track of students, but why did you get an alert? Shouldn’t her… parents get one, or something?”

Mia looks confused by that for a second before she gives Bailey a smile and shakes her head. “Unfortunately Skye and I are in the same boat where parents are concerned. When Skye came here as a summer admission I was assigned to mentor her. So I’m responsible for her.” “When you’re a boarding student your mentor is responsible for you following the rules of the dorms and keeping up with night training if needed. Since it’s a new moon I booked a training session with Skye to help her control her power.” Mia explained after another moment.

Bailey checks her phone for a second. The screen reading 6:45 in bright letters.

“I did ask her to go by my parents restaurant. Could that have caused her to be late?” Bailey asks as Casey looks over at her surprised.

“You what?”

“I was worried about mom and dad so-”

“You just asked her to go over for us?! Did you tell her everything about why we’re here?” Casey’s louder volume startles Bailey a little. 

“I-” Bailey stutters for a second, “I didn't know we were keeping it a secret. To be fair, I told Rory too.”

Casey looks annoyed at that new information and promptly goes back to stabbing his food while Rory and Mia shift awkwardly. 

“Well, I’m going out to look for her. If you guys hear anything can you give me a call?”

“Can we help you look?” Bailey asked as she stood from her seat automatically.

“ _ We _ can’t leave the campus, remember?” Casey threw in her direction between angry forkfuls of pasta. 

“Well, I could look around campus, maybe she got distracted elsewhere?”

“I really appreciate it Bailey.” Mia offered with a relieved smile.

“I’ll help too.” Rory stood as well. “Raincheck on movie night?”

“Deal!”

The three head out and start towards the main gate of the school. Mia rattled off some areas where Skye could be within the campus.

“She does fall asleep in the library sometimes.” Mia stated, “Or she takes advantage of the weight room when no one’s there-”

Mia’s cut off by a bloodcurdling scream. The three run towards the sound, turning the corner of the main fence around campus to see,

“Skye!” Mia yelled when she noticed the younger girl on the ground as an older woman stood over her. Bailey could see the darkness and shadows circling around Skye, flickering like flames.

“So stubborn, it’s like you don’t want to test the limits of your power.” The older woman scoffed as Mia’s eyes narrow. 

“Get away from her.” Mia throws a dagger of light in the woman’s direction, it cuts through her expensive looking jacket as she turns to run. “Get back-”

Mia doesn’t get to finish her thought as Skye screams again, the shadows race towards the three in waves knocking them back onto the pavement while thicker clouds of it circle around Skye. The darkness spins and twists until it consumes Skye entirely, twisted into something very similar to a wolf-ish creature. Bailey watches as the shadows twist into large claws and paws, an emancipated skeleton like body with a scraggly tail and large head with jagged sharp teeth.

The thing stands almost twelve feet tall and lets out a horrific howl as it turns to the three.

“Oh god.”

“Skye?”

The creature lets out a growl, dark shadows dripping from it’s jaws like drool.

“We have to snap her out of it.” Mia looked over to the other two who were completely transfixed on the dark beast before them. “Rory, try to get her out of the shadows! We can’t reach her when they’re trapping her.”

“Got it!” Rory stood firmly as she eyed the monster. After taking a moment to line up her shot she jumps through the air, using her strength and flight abilities to comet towards the beast. She turns her fist up in an uppercut that knocks the beast off balance.

“Did that do it?” Bailey asks, her question is answered when the beast lashes out, knocking Rory out of the air and into the sidewalk.

“Rory!”

“Dammit!” Mia faces the beast, raising her hands a moment before a bright light covers the beast, causing it to cower against he beams. The beast lets out another howl before running off into the night. 

“Rory, are you OK?” Bailey kneels by her friend as Rory pushes herself up. Bailey rests a hand on her shoulder as she kneels down.

“I’m okay.” Rory shakes herself off. “Skye’s got a mean left hook.”

“I’m calling Ajay, we need backup.” Mia fished her phone out of her pocket.

“Why Ajay?”

“He can disable her power.”

“But-”

_ When I’m in someone’s mind, I have the power to disrupt their ability. I can prevent them from using it for a short period of time. It usually affects memory. Depending on how you use the ability you can erase a large or small chunk of the person’s memory. _

“If Ajay does that, he can erase her memory.”

“I know,” Mia said softly as she looked down, “but it’s all we have. If we don’t stop her she can hurt herself. Ajay’s disabling her power was the only thing that worked before so we’ve got to do it again.”

Again.

It clicks in Bailey’s mind all at once. Skye was one of the instances where Ajay had to disrupt someone’s power and wipe a portion of their memory. If Ajay did it again.. .how much would Skye lose? Would Skye forget about her?

The idea made Bailey feel a little sick. She felt like she was just starting to get through to the other girl and now that week of work was going to disappear.

“I’m going to bring her back.” Bailey announces as she stands up, Rory’s power flowed through her as she tapped in to the super speed and flight abilities to race in the direction where the beast disappeared before Rory or Mia could stop her. She follows the trail of broken mailboxes, broken branches and chipped concrete until she comes across the familiar sight of the brush of woods on the edge of town. She flies through the brush of trees until she catches sight of the dark beast ripping trees out of the ground by the roots. 

If she could switch to Skye’s power, she could break up the beast from the inside out. She only had one shot. She analyzed the creature from a distance as to not get it’s attention when she notices the little flash of red between thick shadow in the torso. 

Bailey lines herself up and uses all of the borrowed speed from Rory to launch herself at the back of the beast. It feels like a polar plunge as she rips through the beast, her arm hooking around Skye’s waist as the momentum pushes them both out of the creature. The two hit the forest floor with a loud thud as Bailey focuses Skye’s power to shrink the beast into the darkness until it’s nothing more than stray wisps of wind.

“Skye are you-” Bailey doesn’t get the question out before she’s knocked to the ground. After a dazed moment she looks up to see Skye towering over her, blue eyes glowing and hand hoving in front of her as shadows circle around her.

“Skye?” Bailey looks up to see the dark red color that had taken over Skye’s pupils, a high contrast against the lighter blue of her eyes. Smaller threads of shadow still cling to her like a vice, wrapping around her arms and close to her neck.

Either Skye was still being controlled, or her power was still out of her control. The shadows were controlling Skye more than Skye was controlling the shadows.

“I’m sorry.” Bailey offered for a second before she slams her foot into Skye’s leg a moment before shadows rushed forward missing Bailey by an inch. Bailey moves to stand up as Skye struggles back to her feet. 

This was bad, she didn’t want to hurt Skye, but Bailey knew she had to find a way to snap her out of whatever trance she was in. Bailey thought for a second before she had an idea. She shifts the shadows around her as Skye comes at her with another attack. As soon as Bailey finished molding the shadows she held her creation up as Skye stops mid attack.

“I know you're in there.” Bailey starts as she holds up her own version of a shadow-cat, “And I know you don’t want to hurt me. You don’t want to create monsters with your shadows. You want to create thing like this!”

Skye stares at her blankly, red pupils fixed on the shadow Bailey had molded. 

“You told me this was the first thing you could mold from the shadows. I know it means more to you then you told me.” Bailey admitted with a faint smile, “It’s so sweet in a way. How you would have it near you, how it would act like a real cat. You said it was because you’ve always wanted one that you created your own in shadows. You can’t let them control you, they’re  _ your _ shadows.”

“Bai...ley.” Bailey looked up to meet Skye’s eyes, seeing the red start to fade as the soft, chopped word left Skye’s lips. Bailey takes the momentarily distraction to reach forward. Locking her hand around Skye’s wrist, she uses her borrowed power to force the shadows to release their grip on Skye, propelling them away from her and into the depths of the forest.

“Skye?” Bailey called, unsure of the attempt worked, Skye blinks the rest of the red away, she sways on her feet for a second before Bailey reaches her other hand out to steady her. “Hey! Are you okay?”

“Augh,” Skye closes her eyes for a second raising her hand to her face as if she had a headache. “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter, I’m happy you’re you again!” Bailey grinned. 

“Skye, dear,” A voice calls out. Bailey feels Skye stiffen up, a flash of fear passing through her blue eyes. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

“Skye, who is she?”

“...That’s my mother.” 

Bailey eyes the woman who’s standing a few feet away. 

“Your mother did that to you?!” Bailey feels anger as she takes a few steps towards the offending woman. “How could you do that?!”

“Children don’t become stronger unless they are forced to the edges of their power.” Bailey watches the red haired woman let out a sigh, “As always, I’m disappointed at the lack of progress from my daughter.”

“You’re horrible!” Bailey takes a few more steps forward, “How could you?”

“Bailey, stop!” 

“So arrogant, I wonder what it is that you’re afraid of.” Mrs. Crandall’s pupils flash dark red as Bailey feels a sickening feeling come over her, a faint yell from Skye comes from her left as her world goes dark for a moment.

“Leave her alone!”

Bailey feels the forest come back to her slowly. She finds herself standing in the middle of the forest by herself. She looks around at the thick brush.

“Hello?”

The woods don’t answer her and she feels the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She hears something creeping up behind her as her heartbeat skyrockets.

“Get away!” Bailey turns quickly releasing an arc of darkness at her attacker, the dark figure pulls away for a moment before Bailey feels herself fly through the air for a moment before her back hits the ground hard.

“ _ Bailey _ !” Bailey blinks for a second before taking in her surrounds. Skye has her pinned to the ground, looking down at her with a worried look. 

“What happened?”

Skye lets out a breath as she moves off of her. “My mom happened. Are you OK?”

“Yeah, but I feel like I should be asking you.”

“I’m used to my mother doing that.” Skye sighed, “Her ability is forcing people into a living nightmare… It can cause the person to lash out like if they were sleepwalking.”

“That’s how she made you lose control of your power?”

“Yeah. Mine relies on emotion a lot, so she know how to push me so I start lashing out with shadows without thinking.” Skye explained as she pushed herself to stand. Bailey gets to her feet as well, feeling instantly exhausted. Skye looked just as bad, her hand raised up to stop the bleeding of a cut against her forearm.

Bailey freezes noticing the injury. She remembers the figure she lashed out at in the dream.

“Skye-”

“It’s okay” Skye assured as she followed Bailey’s gaze to the cut on her arm. “Let’s just get back. You’re not supposed to be off campus.”

Bailey had completely forgotten about that small detail. Skye reaches her good hand out to her.

“Come on,” 

Bailey takes her hand and immediately feels herself being embraced by darkness. Within a few seconds the two are standing in the hallway of the dorm room.

“Oh, shadow travel, quick think- SKYE!” Bailey reaches forward to catch the girl as she collapses against her. Bailey drops to her knees, exhausted and surprised at having the other girl pass out after transporting them to the dorms. She yanks her phone from her pocket and hits Rory’s contact on her phone. 

“Bailey?! Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am, but I think Skye needs help.”

Mia and Rory come flying through the stairwell doors a few minute later. Mia quickly checks on Skye while Bailey fills Rory in on what happened after she ran off. 

“She’s exhausted, but she’ll be okay I think.” Mia offered as she picked Skye up so Bailey could move from her place. Rory offers her a hand as Bailey pulls herself onto shaky feet. They all move to the common area where Mia lays Skye down on the couch before taking a look at the cut on her arm, rolling up the now-ruined sleeve of her striped sweater. 

“I think there’s a first aid kit in the kitchen area.” Bailey offered as Rory helped her onto one of the couches before going to retrieve the kit for Mia. 

“That’s really impressive, Bailey.” Mia offered as she cleaned out the cut on Skye’s arm. “You managed to get through to her.”

“Just a little. I used her ability to push the rest of the shadows away.” Bailey explains as she feels herself start to doze off on the chair. Mia stands after finishing bandaging Skye’s arm.

“You look like you’re about to crash. Both of you should be fine here until morning. If you need anything, my room is downstairs. 216.” Mia explained as she stood to leave. Bailey only nods as the blonde walks away.

“Do you want me to stay?” Rory asked, to which Bailey shook her head.

“I think we’re okay now, just really tired. Talk to you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, talk to you tomorrow.”


	4. Ties That Bind

Roger Crandall sits at his favorite leather chair in the Crandall mansion, taking a sip of expensive bourbon as he waits for his wife to get home. He doesn’t bother to turn when the door opens and closes, accompanied by the sound of his wife cursing under her breath.

“So, will our client be happy?”

“They will be. The stupid girl almost ruined it by running away from the school instead of towards it. But we did manage to get the target to follow her so it ended well.”

“Good.” Roger rested his empty glass on the table next to his chair and stood up. “Payment will be collected first thing tomorrow.”

“One of those stupid students ruined a perfectly good jacket.” Alice Crandall scoffs as she tosses the torn jacket into the garbage. She struts over to the wet bar and starts making herself a drink.

“Next time don’t waste your time with the girl.” Roger scoffs as he finishes off his bourbon and stands from his chair. “You could have done better using a different asset.”

“That’s the asset we had in the school to use.” Alice offered with a shrug of her shoulders, “Her power is stronger then most of those riff raff. We made sure of that. We should be free to use whatever assets we need.”

“Your insistence on using the girl is one of the reasons she was turned over to the school to begin with.” Roger scoffed, “We had a deal before. I am not wasting more money on this. You are to stay away from the school.”

Roger moves to leave the room, signaling the end of the argument. Alice allows the disapproving look to clearly show on her face once he’s gone.

________________________________________

_ “It’s a cat!” An eight year old Skye cheered as the dark shadows morphed and shifted into the shape of a small animal. She had finally done it. She had finally done something with her power. Surely her mother would be impressed with it, as she’s never created something like this with the darkness before. Skye picks up the darkened shadow as if it were solid and ran back towards the house with the biggest smile on her face.  _

_ “Mom! Mom!” Skye yelled as she ran through the door. She looks around before noticing her mom in the kitchen. She hurries over, her feet sliding against the tile floor. “Look! I controlled the shadow!” _

_ Her mom looks over with a slightly surprised look for a second before a scowl comes to her face. _

_ “What is that?” _

_ “It’s a cat!” Skye’s grin spreads across her face. “I did what you said! I controlled the shadows! I made them do what I-” _

_ In one swift motion her mother whips her arm through the shadow, causing it to dissolve in the air as Skye jerks back surprised. _

_ “Never waste my time like that again.” Her mother’s voice was cold. “You thought I’d be happy with a pathetic shadow puppet?” _

_ Skye drops her arms, looking down at the floor. _

_ “Stupid girl. Get out of my kitchen.” _

_ Skye hesitates at the command but quickly turns to run back outside when she sees the flicker of red in her mother’s eyes. She didn’t want to go back to the nightmare. They had already gone through training today and she didn’t want to go back. _

_ Once outside, Skye sighs and sits at one of the chairs watching her brother goof around in the pool.  _

_ Why wasn’t the cat good enough? Brian had done less with his power and he was still praised more. Skye curls in on herself as she feels something rub her leg. When she looks up she sees the shadow cat looking back up at her. A small smile comes to her face. _

_ “You came back.” _

________________________________________

Skye feels groggy when she wakes up, noticing at first that she’s not in her dorm. She sits up on the couch and blinks back the last of sleep as she takes in her surroundings. Her eyes land on Bailey sleeping on the chair a few feet away. She feels exhaustion still seeping into her bones from the night of overexerting her power due to her mother’s nightmare influence. 

Bailey seems to be in the same boat, snoring softly on the chair. 

Skye feels a smile twitch against her lips as she sits up, rubbing her eyes only to find that she’d fallen asleep with all her makeup on. She lets out a groan before forcing herself to sit up. She’d have to take a shower to get a night’s worth of flaky makeup and dried sweat off her. 

She watches Bailey sleep for a moment longer, the other girl showed no sign of waking up. It was understandable, Skye was all too familiar with the kind of exhaustion resulted from being a victim of her mother’s ability. Skye was a little more resistant to it, since it was her mother’s favorite tool during training sessions.

Skye forces herself upright as she moves to retrieve new clothes from her dorm and hit the showers. Saturdays were typically quiet, most people on the floors above and below them slept in and then headed into town for the day. Skye grabs a change of clothes, a pair of black jeans and a black v-neck sweater, something simple for what she knew would be a lazy Saturday recovering from her mother.

The good thing about the showers on this floor were that the only two people assigned here were Skye and Bailey so they were usually much cleaner then the girls’ shower downstairs. The bad thing was that it took a few minutes longer for the water to get hot. Skye’s makeup runs down her face in streams of black when she stepped into the shower, the warm water a slight relief to her still sore muscles and sticky skin.

After about thirty minutes Skye turns off the water and changes into her clean clothes. She walks back to the common area towel drying her hair, Bailey still sleeping on the chair.

Skye moves to the kitchen to fetch food and make coffee, something to wake her up from the layer of sleep she tries to fight as she moves around the kitchen. Since Bailey had moved in a few rooms down, the common kitchen area appeared to be more filled then normal. Skye was still getting used to the boxes of hot chocolate next to her coffee and baked confections that Bailey littered around the pantry and cabinets. 

Bailey also seemed to be a fan of the muffins the cafeteria offered, as those littered a basket on the counter as well as a few bananas and apples that Bailey swiped from the Sunday brunch buffet. Skye had only kept a few things in the common area, so the new additions made the room feel a bit more like home.

Skye grabs one of the apples from the basket and hops up on the counter while she waits for the coffee to brew in the pot. She grabs a knife from the drawer and turns to the cabinet to pull the jar of peanut butter out from it’s home on the shelf, making herself comfortable on the counter.

The smell of coffee fills the common area as Bailey starts to stir from her place on the chair. After a while she sits up and starts rubbing her eyes with an audible groan. Bailey looks over and immediately notices Skye up on the counter cutting up the apple into slices and dipping them into the jar.

“Morning.” Skye called over as Bailey blinked lazily. Bailey lets out a yawn and stretches for a moment.

“Morning,” Bailey groans as she pushes herself up and wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, coffee?”

“You don’t like coffee?” Skye asked with a tilted head, she had put enough on the pot for Bailey as well just in case.

“It reminds me of busy Saturday morning where me and Casey were constantly brewing it for the customers.” Bailey walked over to join Skye in the kitchen area, “I tried it once, It’s really bitter. I tried adding milk or something to it, but it’s still gross and bitter.”

Skye tries not to laugh at the way Bailey’s nose wrinkles at the words “gross” and “bitter,” snorting a bit before Bailey turns so her full attention is on the redhead sitting on the counter.

“How’s your arm?” Bailey leaned forward, quickly noticing that Skye had removed the bandage already, the angry red cut clearly visible against her pale skin. “You need to keep it covered so it doesn’t get infected!” 

Skye watches quietly as Bailey moves around, stumbling a bit as she retrieved the first aid kit and set up next to Skye, pulling out the first-aid cream and a fresh bandage.

“You don’t have to do that.” Skye points out as Bailey gently takes Skye’s wrist and guides her arm closer as she worked. Skye winces a bit as the cream hits the wound.

“I know, but…” Bailey trailed off for a second as she took out a clean gauze pad and rested it against the cut before taping it in place with medical tape. “I still feel bad for hurting you.”

“I threw you into the dirt, we’re even.” Skye scoffed as Bailey ran a thumb over the gauze, deep in thought.

“Are you sure you mom isn’t a villain?” Bailey asked with a little annoyance, clearly thinking back to the encounter. “You said she used her power to train you? That’s just horrible. No hero would have done that.”

“My mother believed I would only get stronger if I was forced to use my power wildly. If she pushed me enough she would get whatever results she was looking for.” Skye explained as she looked away from the girl who still had a loose grip on her wrist. “I think that’s why I was brought here for the summer program.”

“You think?” Bailey asked as she watched the slightly frustrated look pass Skye’s face.

“I can’t remember.” Skye admitted. “Ajay said I wouldn’t since he had to use his power to disable mine. I never felt right asking him, I kinda figured what had happened.”

There’s a moment of silence, Bailey’s thumb rubs against the back of Skye’s wrist as she lets out a hum. Skye relaxes a bit into the touch, Bailey’s presence a bit more comforting then she’d let on.

“... Your mom wanted to know if you were eating enough,” Skye offered after a moment. Bailey’s head snaps up to her. “I was trying to be discreet but she caught me.”

Bailey smiles brightly, having completely forgotten that she had asked Skye to check on her parents in the dinner during her trip into town.

“I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear from you when you and Casey are able to talk to them yourselves.” Skye offered after another moment of thought. “They asked a lot of questions.”

“Like what?” Bailey asked as she tilted her head.

“Well, you mom asked how I knew you, I told her we lived on the same floor. Your dad was asking about Casey’s sports thing, but I have no idea so they mainly asked about you.” Skye pointed out, “Your mom thought it was funny that we were the only two on this floor.”

“It is kinda funny.” Bailey pointed out as she thought for a moment. “Why are we the only two on the floor?”

“The boarding program is new, so there aren’t many students who need to dorm here during the school year. They try to fill the second floor first, but I guess Principle Rivera put you up here because of the sudden change. It’s a lot crazier downstairs.”

“Oh, are you up here because the second floor is filled?”

“No, I’m up here because I’m dangerous.” Skye offered off-handedly, causing Bailey to snort a laugh and look up at the other girl.

“Please, the most dangerous thing I’ve seen you do is get apple juice in the peanut butter.” Bailey gestures to the container in Skye’s hands and the apple slices on the plate. She raises an eyebrow when Skye goes ahead and grabs another slice, dipping it in the jar without a second thought. “I mean, I’ll give you points for intimidating, but I don’t think I’d call you dangerous.”

Skye raises an eyebrow, “You seemed pretty scared of me when we first met.”

“That’s an exception, you ambushed me.”

“Heh, and now? After seeing what my ability can do last night?”

“What do you mean?” Bailey asked with a little tilt of her head.

“I told you, I’m used to the way people treat me because of my ability. I’m very aware how it looks.”

“Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but you’re not that scary. At least, I’m not scared of you,” Bailey announced as she went to close the first-aid kit. She catches the look of surprise on Skye’s face when she turns back to her. “I mean, people can think that because of your ability, but doesn’t that mean everyone’s a little scary? I can copy anyone’s ability, so maybe I’m scary to some people too.”

Bailey was expecting a retort, what she wasn’t expecting is the other girl to actually  _ laugh _ at the idea of Bailey being scary. What catches Bailey completely off guard is the smile that comes to the other girl’s face. 

“...Thanks,” Skye offers softly with a smile still on her face. Bailey just stares blankly, completely disarmed. “But I’m sorry to say you’re about as scary as a puppy.”

When Bailey doesn’t retort the smile fades from Skye’s face, replaced with a much more confused look. 

“What?”

“Sorry! I… don’t think I’ve seen you smile before.” Bailey points out before flashing a bashful look of her own, “You have a really pretty smile.”

Pink spreads across Skye’s face as she stutters a second for an intelligent response to that. Bailey feels heat raise to her own face as the two stay perfectly still for a few awkward moments.

“Uh, I can make breakfast!” Bailey suddenly offers trying to shoo Skye off the counter. “Okay, off.”

Bailey claps her hands as if trying to move a cat. Skye just raises an eyebrow before turning slightly on the counter to pour herself a cup of coffee. She turns back to Bailey and takes a sip from her cup happily on the counter.

She watches the look of horror cross Bailey’s face.

“That’s...black.”

“Like my soul.”

“And bitter!”

“Also like my soul.”

“I take it back,” Bailey huffs as she moves to make breakfast, working around Skye, “You’re terrifying.”

______________________________________________

“So that’s what happened.” Mia sipped her coffee as she sat across from Ajay in the library, having gone over the events of last night. Ajay sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Principle Rivera is going to put an orange label on Skye’s file again for that.” Ajay sighed, “Mia, you have to keep an eye on her.”

“Hey, I’m not keeping her on a leash! She’s a person, not an animal. And what happened last night wasn’t her fault.” Mia explained in annoyance. “Isn’t her mother banned from the school grounds? She isn’t supposed to be near Skye, so why is Principle Rivera punishing Skye when her mother was the one who did something wrong?”

“You’d have to make that case to her when we meet with her later.” Ajay said as he closed his book, “I’m not happy about it either. We also have to justify Bailey going off campus.”

“She was going after Skye!”

“I understand that.” Ajay shook his head, “But that broke security protocol, and with everything that’s been happening... that’s a very serious offense.”

“Skye shadow-traveled them right back to the dorms when all was said and done. They weren’t gone that long.” Mia slouched in her chair. “Can’t she just cut them some slack? They’re freshmen. No freshman has full control of their power or emotions.”

“We should head over.” Ajay stood up, Mia reluctantly following suit as the two walked over to the main office. The two wait for a few minutes outside Principal Rivera’s office before they’re called in. 

Mia tells the story of what happened the night before. Principal Rivera listens as she speaks, taking down notes. Skye and Bailey’s files in front of her.

“The situation could have been avoided if Mrs. Crandall had left Skye alone as she’s supposed to.”

“That’s enough Miss. Warren, I’m fully aware of the situation with Miss. Crandall and her parents, however, that’s no excuse for her missing curfew in the first place.” Principal Rivera explained calmly. “But, it is the beginning of the year, I will only punish the curfew offense. She will stay as a threat level yellow as well.” 

Mia looks a little defeated, but wasn’t going to argue with the lesser punishment for Skye.

“This is Miss Jenkins’ first offense, so I’m willing to be lenient with her as well. I’ll let her off with a written warning. If this happens again there will be more serious consequences. Mr. Bhandari, I do hope in the future you will be on hand to help deflect these kinds of situations. We cannot have the younger students rushing in recklessly. Especially where out of control students are involved. We were very lucky that there were no serious injury this time.” 

Ajay only nods, looking on with an unreadable expression. 

Principal Rivera nods before dismissing the two. Mia lets out a breath as they walk out. Bailey’s written warning and Skye’s punishment written down as well.

“I can’t believe she pulled Skye’s curfew back to five.” Mia sighed, “I guess it could have been worse.”

“It’s only temporary,” Ajay commented. “It’s two weeks.”

“Come on, we should go tell them the news.” Mia offered as she turned to the dorms. Ajay lived off campus, so he needed Mia to scan in for him so he could go with her to tell the two about their punishments for the broken rules.

Once they get to Skye and Bailey’s floor, they’re greeted by a rather unusual sight. Bailey and Skye were eating breakfast in the kitchen area of the common room. Both sitting up on the countertops, Bailey chatting very animatedly to the stoic looking redhead next to her. 

Skye seems to notice the two first, looking over like a puppy expecting to be kicked. Ajay really couldn’t blame her for that expression.

“Hey guys!” Mia greeted with a bright smile, “What are you two up to?”

“Oh! Hi Mia! Hi Ajay!” Bailey greeted with a smile, “I made scrambled eggs if either of you want some!”

Mia smiles her usual bright beam, a soft laugh escaping her lips. 

“I’m fine, but that’s sweet of you Bailey.” Mia tried to keep a lighthearted appearance despite Ajay’s own somber face.

“We just finished talking to Principal Rivera about what happened last night.” Ajay cut straight to business, seeing both the freshman got still at the mention. Mia clears her throat.

“You two aren’t in that much trouble.” Mia assures as Skye’s shoulders relax very slightly, “You’re both getting written warnings. Skye’s curfew is back to five because of the violation...and…”

Mia hesitates a second, looking to Ajay before giving up the last bit of info.

“You’re still yellow carded until further notice.” Ajay offered figuring the info should  be given quick. Like ripping off a bandage. Skye’s face flashes with hurt for a second, before going to a very emotionless state. Ajay watches the younger girl hop off the counter, drop her mug in the sink, and leave the room without another word. Mia exhales, letting the girl go let off steam.

“What does that mean?” Bailey asked, clearly surprised by Skye’s sudden departure.

Mia shakes her head, “Some students get threat levels on their files. It just kinda just adds a few more rules they have to follow.”

“... because you think she’s dangerous.” Bailey’s voice is a little more accusing and Ajay looks up at her a little more surprised. “That’s insane! We’re all students, we can’t have threat levels on us.”

“Bailey, it’s more complicated than that.” Ajay tried to reason as Bailey jumped off the counter. “Threat levels are set for security reasons, because some students have abilities that can be dangerous to other people. Or they’re in a situation where they pose a threat to other students.”

“So Skye’s yellow because her mother can cause her to go feral with her power?”

“Well, let’s put it this way. Skye was orange when she came to Berry over the summer, she brought it down to yellow before the start of the year. Mia and myself are green, meaning no threat. You and your brother are red.”

Bailey stared at him.

“You’re both critical threats. Because, in case you forgot, a villain may be after you and your brother. You put Skye is a lot of danger last night, what would have happened if you two were attacked?”

Bailey looks away.

“Skye broke curfew, that’s a minor offense, but Principal Rivera could have gone a lot worse with you. You need to be more mindful.”

“It was my fault in the first place.” Bailey said quietly. “I asked her to check on my parents, that’s why she was late. That’s why her mother got a hold of her and forced her to lose control. None of this is Skye’s fault.”

“No… But her mother coming after her is suspect, so we need to keep a better eye on her as well. We only have the threat levels to keep everyone safe.” Ajay insisted.

Bailey clearly doesn’t like it, even if she understands why the school had to use threat levels to help security.

“I’m gonna go check on Skye,” Mia said after a moment. She turns for a second before turning back to Bailey. “I do want to thank you though, Bailey.”

Bailey looks over at her.

“You did save Skye from having part of her memory wiped. That’s a victory in my book. And it’s nice to know when things get out of control… You can reel her back in.” Mia turns away with a wink before walking down the hall where Skye disappeared.

“Mia’s right, despite breaking rules… That was impressive.” Ajay offered as he glanced over at the coffee pot.

“Oh, Skye made extra, do you want some? I don’t drink it.” Bailey asked as she catches Ajay’s look. Ajay gives her a grateful nod as he moves to pour himself a cup, taking a sip and watching Bailey look at him with a horrified look.

“What?”

“Why? Why are you like this?”

Ajay gives her a confused look as Bailey gestures wildly to the mug in his hands.

“You and Skye! How can you stand that black? Nothing in it! You’re crazy!”

Ajay just sips his coffee. “I guess I should thank you too.” 

Bailey tilts her head,

“I’m glad you were able to get through to Skye, if you hadn’t, I would have been forced to use my ability on her,” Ajay points out. “You saved me a lot of grief.”

Bailey looks a little sheepish.

“I didn’t want to risk her forgetting about me. It sounds really weird since we haven’t known each other long. But.” Bailey trails off, trying to sort out her words. “It would be really sad if she didn’t remember me.”

Ajay turns away looking at nothing in particular. His mind wanders for a minute before settling on a particular memory.

_ “I’ve got a riddle for you.” Kelly smiled as she took a seat next to Ajay, “What happens when the snow melts?” _

_ Ajay scoffed trying to contain the butterflies in his stomach with her being that close to him. _

_ “That’s not a riddle. When the snow melts it turns into water-” _

_ “Wrong.” Kelly smiled and Ajay felt his heart stop. _

_ “When the snow melts, Spring comes!” _

_ Ajay just stares, and Kelly laughs. _

_ “Come on, Ajay! This is your first chance as director, you can’t afford to have such a limited mindset. If you focus on all the details you miss the big picture.” _

“It would be sad,” Ajay mused, “If you had to watch someone forget about you.”

“You always seem so much more serious when that power is brought up.” Bailey pointed out cautiously. “Do you want to talk about it? I mean, it just looks like it’s really bothering you.

Ajay sighed.

“Maybe some other time.” He turned to put his now empty cup in the sink. “I have to finish casting for the play. That’s my main focus right now.”

Ajay gives a nod as he turns to leave, a mixed feeling of relief and pain creeping at his stomach.

Bailey watches him leave staring at her almost empty plate for a few minutes before turning to clean up and head back to her dorm. She could spend the rest of her Saturday watching cartoons on her computer and snuggling in her bed. Bailey takes a minute to rinse out the dishes in the sink before setting them to dry and heading back to her room. As soon as the door closes, Bailey sinks into her familiar settings.

She frowns for a second as she sees her window open, the cool wind tosses her curtains from side to side. She noticed that her room was chilly as she trudged over to shut the window. Strange, she had thought that she closed it.

There’s something off about her room. Everything just feels… slightly moved. Nothing was destroyed or torn apart, but everything was just a little off from what Bailey remembered. Bailey does a quick round of the room, making sure everything was accounted for. Her books, computer, several emotional support plushies, and any jewelry that she had brought with her were all still present and accounted for. When she walks over to her bed, she notices a corner of a paper sticking out from under her pillow. After a moment of hesitation, she lifts her pillow quickly and backs up from the bed as if a bomb was placed there.

After a moment she walks closer and picks up the torn paper.

It looked like an old news article.

It wasn’t in English.

Bailey frowns and looks at the paper. It is an article, a smudged up, blurry image followed by equally faded text. Bailey’s more uncomfortable than she was before at the clear confirmation that someone had been in her room and it hadn’t just been her imagination. Bailey flees from the room, running down the hall and up the stairs to Casey’s room.

As soon as she gets there she starts knocking on the door frantically. Casey answers the door, his expression immediately turning to confusion and concern at Bailey’s frantic face.

“Bail? What’s wrong?”

“I think someone was in my room.” Casey steps aside and lets Bailey into his room. She paces back and forth for a big, explaining what had happened as she shows Casey the newspaper.

“We should tell Principal Rivera.” Casey offers, “Here, I’ll hold on to the newspaper. You go talk to her and let her know you think someone was in your room.”

“Shouldn’t I give her the newspaper?” Bailey asked as Casey reached forward for the paper in Bailey’s hand. 

“I mean, It’s not really proof that someone was in your room. I think I know someone who can translate it. So maybe we can get a lead on who was in your room quicker.”

Bailey thought for a moment before deciding to trust Casey, handing him the article before taking a breath.

“Want to bunk with me tonight?” Casey asked, “You can have the bed. That way you don’t have to worry about someone coming back.”

“I think I’ll feel better after talking to Principal Rivera. Thanks, though.” Bailey flashed a smile, “Glad my baby brother is looking out for me.”

“You’re not much older than me!” Casey tried to argue as he stored the newspaper article in the drawer of his desk.

“Two minutes is a long time in dog years.” Bailey tried to reason before she shook her head and headed back to the door. “I’m going to talk to Principal Rivera.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Casey asked. Bailey thinks for a moment and then shakes her head. 

“No, I think I’m okay, just needed to panic for a second.”

“Glad my room’s the panic room.” Casey shook his head. “If you’re sure. I think Principal Rivera has open office hours for the next few hours.”

Bailey nodded and headed out the door. The second she leaves Casey listens for her footsteps to fade down the hall before turning back to his desk. He takes the newspaper clipping out and rests it on top of the wood surface. He scurries to his closet to take out the corkboard he had hidden there. Everything the internet would let him find about Lunatic pinned on the board. Push pins and red string connected certain pieces. Casey pins the newspaper on the corner with the other pieces he hasn’t been able to place.

______________________________________________

_ “...Hello?” _

“Mr. Grieves, this is Principal Rivera from Berry High.” Principal Rivera puts on her best customer service face as Skye’s file sits on her desk, the yellow band across the tab a reminder of the student’s current threat level.

“ _ Something going on with my niece? _ ” The man asked with a hint of concern, voice raspy and gravely through the slight static from the phone.

“I don’t know Mr. Grieves. But we seem to have had a bit of an issue with your sister-”

The man lets out an irritated exhale. 

“I’d advise you to talk to her.” Principal Rivera pressed, “Remind her of your current agreement.”

_ “Heh, my older sister has always been a my way or the highway type. I’m surprised she’s held off this long. She never liked when I took things from her.” _ The man pauses, “ _ But if I remember our deal, you were supposed to keep my niece safe. So why are we having issues?” _

“I have a school filled with children to protect. Your niece also broke curfew. I’m keeping her threat level where it is for the time being.”

_ “...Mrs. Rivera, I don’t think I have to tell you twice about how much that kid means to me. You better keep her safe. I’ll deal with my sister this time, but your going to stop treating my niece like she’s a threat to your happy little school.” _

“I remember why I put off calling you.” Principal Rivera sighs, “You haven’t changed much since high school, Brody. You were always so overprotective of everyone. Especially El-”

“ _ I get it _ .” Brody sighed, “ _ So what exactly did my sister do this time?” _

“She seems to have wanted to get Skye to attack the school, however a few students diverted her away.” Principal Rivera explains, “However, it looks like someone got onto school grounds while Skye’s nightmare form distracted them.”

_ “I’ll poke at her then. Probably a client thing with one of the students parents.” _

Principal Rivera sighed, 

“That’s what I’m worried about."

______________________________________________

Brody Grieves hung up the office phone. He gives an irritated sigh as he stands up and slips on his jacket.

“Going somewhere boss?” One of the other detectives asked as Brody grabbed his hat and started heading out.

“I’m going to pay my sister a visit.” Brody called over his shoulder as the other detective gave him a sympathetic look. “Hold down the fort for me, okay,  Heth?”

Brody walks out the doors of The Grieves PI Agency and heads to his car, pulling out his cell phone on the way. The screen lights up to show an old photo of him and his older and younger sister back when they were all around their teen years.

“What did you do?” Brody sighs and shakes his head as he gets into his car.

______________________________________________

Ajay sits at his desk going through his notes from the theatre auditions. He’s thinking over who should play what role.

“Jordan had the best audition for the Prince.” Ajay murmurs to himself. “Him and Rory together would get a lot of people to come opening night.”

Ajay writes their names on their respective parts on the rough draft of the casting list.

“Bailey had a good audition too, and her chemistry with Rory would work as well.” He writes Bailey’s name next to a smaller part and puts in the notes “Princess Understudy #1.”

Ajay thought for a second, slightly concerned about the chemistry between the two, if that became an issue…

He let out an exaggerated sigh. This play had to be perfect. There was too much resting on the success of the play.

Ajay flips through his notes again as he decides on the cast, his eraser tearing through the paper at every correction or edit of the cast.


	5. Schrödinger’s Cat

Chapter 5: Schrödinger's Cat

Bailey trudges her way through the halls and towards Principal Rivera’s office. During their first meeting Principal Rivera was strangely calm about the whole thing… almost like she wasn’t really surprised when Bailey had told her about how she thought someone might have been in her room. Principal Rivera seemed to think it was just stress, since Bailey left out the part about the newspaper, caused by the sudden uprooting and need to adjust to life in the dorms as well as having to learn of her biological father’s status as a villian. She still had Bailey fill out an incident report, just in case. 

It’s before breakfast, so the secretary for the office isn’t in yet. Bailey navigates through the main office to Principal Rivera’s office and knocks on the door, quickly greeted with a “come in” from the other side.

“Here’s my report.” Bailey held up the few pieces of paper that she was told to fill out. She gave as much information as she could while leaving out the part about the newspaper and about giving over to her brother to translate. Principal Rivera nods and takes the stapled sheets. She quickly glances over it before turning back to Bailey.

“Thank you Miss. Jenkins, I’ll make sure our security team gets this.” 

It feels so much more anti-climatic than Bailey and thought it would be. She turns and leaves the office, going to meet up with Casey in the cafeteria for breakfast. When she turns the corner she almost crashes into Ajay going the other way.

“Sorry!” Bailey quickly blurted out before noticing who she bumped into. “Oh, hi Ajay. What are you doing here so early?”

“I’m meeting with Mr. Olsen to go over the casting for the play,” Ajay explained. “It will be posted later today, and no, I will not let you peek.”

“I didn’t even ask yet!”

“Yet.”

Ajay shakes his head, a slight smile betraying his usually stoic face.

“I’ll see you later, Bailey.”

“Okay!”

_______________________________________

It was so hard to find quality leather in this small town.

Alice Crandall sighed as she tossed aside another leather coat that just didn’t fit her aesthetic. The one that was ruined a few nights ago was one of her favorites. Typical. Leave it to that rebellious brat to ruin a perfectly good imported Italian leather jacket. Replacing the thing was going to be a chore she didn’t need right now. She’s going through a display with a few Balenciaga styles when she hears someone clear their throat from behind her.

“Isn’t that a bit pricey?” 

Alice frowns and turns her head slightly to see the familiar bored look from her younger brother. 

“They let you in here dressed like that?” Alice’s nose wrinkles as she gestures at his clothes. He had such a scruffy look about it, always had even when they were children. He stood in the middle of the shop is scuffed up black pants, black boots that looked like they’ve seen more than a few chases, a white button up shirt underneath a black vest and a long black jacket that made him look like a detective from a black and white movie. Messy dark red hair was mostly covered under the wide brimmed hat he seemed to never be without. 

“They’re for work.” Brody adjusted his hat. “Speaking of, I need to talk to you.”

“Well, I’m very busy now.”

“We had a deal.” Brody ignored her protest. “You need to stay the hell away from my niece. I don’t care who your client was that night. I find out you touched her again and the deal is off.”

Alice frowned, her hands stopped going through the rack of jackets enough to fulling look at her brother. Brody holds her glare. After a moment a subtle smirk comes across his lips.

“You know, I was thinking the other day. She really looks like Elise now doesn’t she?”

Alice turns fully to her brother, her eyes a clear warning. A warning, however, that her brother was far too used to and that had lost power over him.

“It’s kind of poetic if you think about it. Like a constant reminder of your biggest mistake and your greatest desire.” Brody hummed. “You  _ did _ get what you wanted after all.”

Alice’s glare could have killed him on the spot. 

“What do you want?”   
“I want the name of your client.” Brody growled back. Alice seemed to think for a moment.

“Petition to give Roger back his parental custody.”

_ That _ made Brody laugh.

“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening. In case you really are that dense, you seem to want the girl around more than he does. And she’s  _ his _ daughter.” Brody shook his head, “You didn’t treat her any better then he does. You just want to give your husband another strong child like Brian. It didn’t matter who you had to trick or lie to in order to get it.”

Alice goes red.

“We will not talk about this here.”

“I want the name, Alice.” Brody said more sternly. “Or I will personally hand Skye Elise’s journal of what happened that year she died.”

That threat caused Alice to back off for a second, a surprised look on her face.

“Think of like a Schrödinger's Cat experiment. Skye’s the cat and the journal is the hammer. Do you really want to open that box? It won’t matter what your husband got away with. That girl will become your worst nightmare. She’ll put your ability to shame.”

“You think I’m scared of her?”

“If I recall, the charges against your husband were dropped by me under the condition that you treated Skye as if she were your own. When you failed at that, I made another deal, your husband signs over his parental rights, I become the girl’s guardian, and you keep your husband out of jail. Wouldn’t it suck if all that work was for nothing?” Brody sighed, “It certainly would be an issue if all your investors found out that Skye wasn’t your daughter.”

Alice goes red. He had spoken the forbidden reality. The truth she wants to keep hidden more than anything. She shoves him out of the shop and several eyes start to land on them. As soon as they’re outside the shop, Alice starts yelling at him.

“Do not take that tone with me! You have no idea how much I’ve worked to keep this company going. You will not ruin this.”

“What are you more upset about, Alice? The fact that you couldn’t give your husband another child, or that you tricked your little sister into having a child for you and having her die a few hours after Skye was born?”

Alice slaps him hard across the face.

“Get away from me.”

“Give me a name.”

“I don’t have one. The woman came to me with an alias and she paid in cash. I don’t have anything to give to you.”

“Must have been one hell of a payout.” Brody sighed. He knew his sister was telling the truth and it wasn’t uncommon for them to take on shady clients, so her story seemed to line up. There’s a moment of silence.

“So, Brody, are you going to open the box?” Alice asks this more sarcastically, although Brody knew the fear of having to explain to her husband that they could no longer show off his daughter to potential investors was weighing down on her. Most of their clientele liked the fact that the Crandalls’ seemed to have the perfect family. A perfect son and a perfect daughter. A son with the same impressive ability as his father and a daughter that was shown off like a doll.

If only Alice knew, that box was opened a long time ago. The cat was still alive, wasn't she?

Skye was too much like her birth mother at times. She opted to dealing with her parents abuse a few more years before the incident that caused her to live at Berry and confirm to her uncle that she had already known about her birth mother. She wanted out, but then there was the issue of Brody not being home often, he worked long hours, Skye would have to be by herself a lot if Brody had to house his niece in his small apartment. He could hardly be there for her now but there was no way she could stay with the family that has essentially decided they didn’t want her.

At least that seems to be her father’s decision. Alice seemed to only want her around as a doll to show off and less as a daughter. 

“She’s going to need to know eventually.” Brody sighed playing a familiar game, “I’m not leaving her with you any longer.”

As if Skye was ever going back to them after what they did. When dealing with the Crandalls it was best not to show your hand.

“Don’t act like you can’t stand to look at her either.” Alice snorted. “After all, she looks like Elise, she must remind you that you can’t save her either.”

Brody only let out a chuckle. “Don’t act like you didn’t put Elise in the situation to begin with, now I’m done playing blame games with you. If you don’t have information for me, we’re done here.”

Brody turns to walk away, not hearing any more argument from his older sister.

_______________________________________

Rory scopes out the hallway by the theatre room, waiting patiently as Ajay walked up, moving to tack the finalized cast list on the corkboard. As soon as Ajay’s in the process of tacking up the list, Rory uses her super speed to get as close as possible.

“Hey Ajay!” The director jumps for a moment before shooting her an irritated look. “So this is the final casting?”

Rory gave an excited hop as she looked over Ajay in order to see the list.

_ The Enchanted Kingdom Cast: _

_ Lady Eve/The Knight…... Rory Silva _ _   
_ _ Princess Abigail…...Bailey Jenkins _

_ The Witch…….Danielle Diaz _

_ Peasant #1…..Clint Woodson _

_ Peasant #2…..Natasha Vega _

_ King…….Erin Ward _

“Don’t look so surprised.” Ajay scoffed, “You earned it.”

“Oh, I’m just a little surprised Jordan’s name isn’t up here.”

“I talked to him earlier. He had to pull out of the play because he started on another project.”

“Mysterious.” Rory commented as she looked back at the casting list. “So Bailey impressed you then? You usually don’t cast Freshman as leads.”

“I think she can handle it, and her ability to copy Sydney’s ability gives Sydney more time between scenes to touch up makeup.”

Rory stared at the cast list with a little smile.

“That’s not going to be an issue is it?” Ajay asks as he stares at her seriously.

“What?”

“You know my rules about getting involved with co-stars, Silva, I will pull people from this production if there is an issue.” 

Rory only salutes, “There’s no issue Sir!”

Ajay gave her a look but turned to sigh. It was mostly a bluff, the theatre group was fairly small and finding a replacement would be difficult regardless.

“Good.” Ajay turned to walk back to the theatre room, “First rehearsal is tomorrow.”

Rory smiled as she noticed some of the other actors come around the corner and head straight to the corkboard. She waited patiently for Bailey to show up. Clint and Natalie practically run down the hall when they notice the list up. Erin strolls over a few minutes later. Eventually Rory sees the girl as she turns the corner and is slightly surprised when she sees Skye with her, listening to whatever story Bailey is telling her with her usual stoic look. Bailey seems to notice the crowd by the board and quickly speeds up.

“Congratulations Bailey!” Natalie quickly called as she jumped up excitedly. Bailey gave a look of confusion before she looked at the casting sheet and saw her eyes widen and she gives a dorky jump of excitement. 

“No way! I got cast as a lead?” Bailey’s grin is contagious and Rory feels herself smiling along.

“I guess we’ll be doing a lot of scenes together, Princess Abigail.” Rory bows dutifully as Bailey laughs.

“I look forward to performing alongside you, Lady Eve.” Bailey replies with a curtsy of her own. Bailey hears Rory chuckle as she straightens up and smiles.

“This will be fun. We’ll get to star in the play together.” Rory smiled brightly, excitement sparkling in her eyes. Bailey returns the smile before she sees someone scowl from the corner of her eye. She turns to see Danielle staring hard at the cast list. After a minute she turns to Bailey with a forced smile.

“Congratulations on getting the Princess. I’m surprised Ajay picked a freshman.” Danielle commented with a slightly bitter tone. Bailey just stared for a second, not really sure how to respond to the venom in Danielle’s voice. She’s never met anyone who could make anything sound like an insult like Danielle could.

Bailey isn’t sure what to do with the fake smile or glare Danielle is still throwing at her as she waits for some sort of response from Bailey, so she just smiles. 

“I’m sure you’ll make a great witch too.” Bailey offers remembering where Danielle’s name was on the cast list.

“It kinda had to be you or Danielle for the witch, you were the only two who didn’t flinch at Skye’s ability.” Clint offered before turning to the redhead, “No offense.”

“Whatever.” Skye shrugged.

“I can’t wait to start rehearsing.” Rory gave a little hop of excitement. Bailey flashed her a smile as their eyes met for a moment. 

_______________________________________

_ “What are you doing?” _

_ “I’m not really feeling this scene.” Marvin laughed, flashing his signature one-thousand watt smile, as he walked to the edge of the stage. “We should do something different. Here I’ll show you how-” _

_ “That’s not-” _

_ “It should be more dramatic. My character gazing past her to the world while she only has eyes on me. I lean forward and place a kiss on her cheek before leaving, her eyes on me the entire time.” Marvin explains, talking over Ajay before he can get a sentence out. _

_ “That’s not how-” _

_ “I love it!” Kelly jumped up at the idea, flashing Marvin a beautiful smile. Always a beautiful smile. She always looked at Marvin with that bright smile, sometimes with a light blush across her face, hanging onto every word he said. Marvin’s attitude was starting to grate on Ajay’s nerves. He was getting tired of Marvin’s constant suggestions on how to change the script. He acted like he was the one directing the play and it was taking away from the chances Ajay had to win Kelly over. _

_ Marvin insists on ending rehearsal early and Ajay can’t deal with his attitude anymore and agrees. The sooner they got out the sooner he could catch Kelly in the courtyard. He liked their meetings where it was only the two of them, hanging out and talking about theatre. _

_ It became a tradition. Almost every lunch they’d sit at the same lunch table and talk about different playwrights. Different directors. Sometimes even movies. Kelly had this love for theatre that rivaled Ajay’s. She talked about it with such captivating passion that left Ajay hanging on every word.  _

_ “So I was thinking about that scene Marvin wanted to try. The one where my character becomes so overwhelmed by her emotions that her ability starts to act on it’s own?” _

_ “What?” Ajay looked over at her, Marvin had made another insane suggestion, one that called for Kelly to overload her power. Ajay thought that was going too far. The way Marvin had described having Kelly uses her ability was outside her realm of control. If she tried it, she could lose control for real. _

_ “I mean, it’s a risk but you gotta take a few risks right?” Kelly asked with a smile. “And if we pull it off, it would be amazing.” _

_ “Kelly, I think it’s too much of a risk.” Ajay explained. _

_ “But Marvin and I talked about it. He was concerned too, but he cares about me. He wouldn’t consider it if he thought I’d get hurt.” _

_ “Why do you want to do the scene so bad?” Ajay asked, his heart sinking before the answer left her lips. _

_ “I really like him. I want to be on his level so I’ll have a chance. He’s so amazing.” Kelly stares dreamily back towards the school, probably imagining the other boy in her head. _

_ “It’s not worth the risk, you’re too good for him anyway.” Ajay swallowed whatever fear was left in him. “Can’t you see how awful he is?” _

_ “Don’t you mean you’ve been awful? You’ve been trying to keep us apart all week.” Kelly pointed out as her voice raised. Her statement was true. Ajay started to catch on to the fact that Kelly might be developing feelings for her co-star. Ajay tried to prevent it, he was just starting to muster up the courage to ask Kelly out and he didn’t want to lose his chance because of Marvin. _

_ Ajay felt his stubbornness come through a bit at her statement, “What? He’s the one who can’t respect any of my decisions and who’s always on his high horse. I’m only trying to-” _

_ “To make choices for me? Yeah, I don’t think that’s what a good friend would do.” Kelly fired back cutting him off. She looks away for a moment. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be friends anymore, actually.” _

_ “What?” Ajay’s stunned by her words, completely left speechless as she continues. _

_ “Let’s just get through this show, okay?” _

_______________________________________

Ajay's eyes snapped open as he hears footsteps on the stage. He looks over to see Skye pacing on the strange, counting something and taking notes in a black sketchbook.

"What are you doing?" Ajay asks as he sits up. The freshman finishes her count before turning to him.

"I need the size of the stage for the set designs." Skye answered in a  monotone voice.

Set designs weren't due for a while, so Ajay was a little surprised at her initiative.

"I have the sizes from some of last year's sets-"

"I looked at them, they're off." Skye announced as she hopped off the stage. Ajay stands up and stretches, feeling as though he has spent enough time wallowing in the past for one day.

"So when can I expect the first designs?"

"Next week." 

Ajay wasn't expecting a sure answer. As Skye stands, gazing up at the stage and sketching in her book Ajay walks over peeking over her shoulder.

The page is covered in black ink, an impressive to scale sketch of the stage with measurements rests on the page in surprising detail.

"That's not bad."

Skye just shrugs. Putting her pen back into the spine of the sketchbook. Ajay thinks for a minute.

“Hey, can we use one of your set design sketches for the flyer?” Ajay asked, “It might look really cool, like a storybook effect.”

“Sure, whatever,” Skye shrugs, “Did you want it in color or?”

“I think the color would help. After we finalize the set design you can do the sketch for the poster.” Ajay nodded a slight smile on his face. “If we get the posters up by homecoming that would be ideal. We could promote the play early and get people excited about it.”

Skye nods. Ajay looks over at the stage with newfound confidence. This play was the most important thing he’d ever direct in his high school career. It had to be perfect. 

_______________________________________

Bailey’s heart hammered in her chest as she stepped into the theatre room the first day of rehearsal. Several of the other actors were running lines in small groups. Rory is pacing back and forth with the script in her hands, muttering lines with her eyebrows close together in concentration.

“Hiya Rory.” Bailey greets as the other girl stops her reading to look over at her. “I don’t think that face works with the scene.”

“You think? I was trying for a more, angsty look.” Rory joked with a smile. 

“I don’t think it works, sorry.” Bailey shook her head as Ajay strode up to the stage. 

“Already everyone, let’s get started. Bailey, Rory, we’ll start with your intro scenes.”

The two start towards the stage, Bailey feels someone run into her from the left. She lets out an oof before turning to see Danielle staring coldly at her.

“Sorry.”

Bailey has a feeling she wasn’t sorry.

_______________________________________

Bailey’s pretty sure Danielle doesn’t like her, and she’s not one-hundred percent sure why. She certainly hadn't intentionally done anything to make her angry.

Bailey's deep in thought when she feels someone nudge her from behind. As soon as she turns around she's greeted by Rory's trademark smile.

"Hey Bailey! You did really good today. I can tell Ajay made the right choice casting you as the lead."

"I'm so excited! I hope I don't mess anything up."

"You'll be great, trust me, I have a sixth sense for these things." Rory stated matter of factly as they started walking together through the campus and toward the student parking lot. "We should celebrate you getting the lead! It's so rare that a freshman gets such a big role. We can meet up at my place for-"

Rory stops when she finally remembers Bailey still couldn't leave the campus.

"I mean, or, I could bring the console here for a game night."

"You don't have to." Bailey forced a smile. "It's okay, plus we've gotta focus on the play or Ajay will sense slacking off."

"Do you think that's part of his ability?" Rory asked leaning in conspiratorially. "Like a spidey-sense?"

Bailey laughed and shook her head as she stopped at the edge of the lot.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

Rory offered a smile. "See you tomorrow."

Bailey gives a final dorky wave as she turns around and starts back toward the dorms. Rory frowns before turning back to her car. Bailey had to be getting a little stir crazy being trapped on campus. She probably missed her parents a lot.

An idea hit Rory as she unlocked her car doors. 

_______________________________________

The first week of rehearsal feels like a sort of hell week. Ajay presses the entire theatre department hard, emphasizing that the play was to be performed in November, meaning they only had about two months to rehearse and make sure everything was perfect. Everything had to be perfect because the play was only performing for one night and all the ticket sales and donations were going to a select charity. 

Ajay had said that charity wanted to be anonymous, which people considered a little weird, but regardless everyone seemed to be working really hard on the production. Clint and Natalie even went out a bought a huge bag of carrots to rehearse one of their peasant scenes.

Danielle seemed to work on making Bailey’s life difficult just as much as she worked on perfecting her own role. At least once during the rehearsal she would bump into Bailey, or stop the scene when they went through lines to comment about how Bailey could do it differently. 

She also seemed to be taking up as much of Rory’s time as possible, something that kinda stumped Bailey since the Witch and Knight didn’t have nearly as many scenes together and her and Rory had.

Bailey tries not to think too hard on it, it was Friday after all which meant it was the first football game of the season. Casey expressed his excitement and nervousness at his first football game as part of the high school team. To top everything off their first game was against Hearst, a long time rival of Berry’s.

Bailey decides, since the other theatre kids were going to the game as well, that she’d walk over to the field with Skye since they would be leaving from the same place. Skye didn’t seem very interested in going to the game, but had agreed to come when Bailey asked if she wanted to walk over with her.

“Wow, it’s so crowded,” Bailey noticed when they got to the field and saw the throgs of Heart and Berry students and family. One half of the field was bright green and white, Heart school spirit clothing vibrating brightly against the darker evening sky. The other side with bright red and gold. A few Berry and Hearst students looked to be on good terms, meeting and chatting in the middle ground between the two schools.

Skye just hums a bit in agreement scanning the Berry half for the rest of the theatre kids. After a few seconds, Bailey catches a glimpse of Rory waving them over. 

“I see them!” Bailey announces as she reached over and grabbed Skye’s wrist so they didn’t get separated in the crowd. She tugs Skye along as she moves through the crowd, avoiding being hit by students who were pumped for the game and jumping around like a mosh pit at a concert. 

“Hey guys,” Erin greeted when the two walked up. Erin was quickly assigned to be Casey’s mentor and trained him in his ability after classes much like Mia taught Skye. Bailey was still assigned to Ajay until they found someone who could teach her properly. Mimicking abilities were rare and it was taking more time to gauge how Bailey’s ability worked and who would be able to train her properly. Erin was also part of the theatre club and had quickly warmed up to Bailey during the first week of rehearsal.

“Hey!” Bailey greeted everyone as her and Skye sat in an open space at the edge of the theatre group. Kick off was in a few minutes as people were starting to crowd the bleachers more, getting ready for the game to start.

“How was Casey feeling? Ready for the first game of the season?” Rory asks from the other side of Erin as the teams set up for kick off. The referee flips a coin to see who’s kicking off. 

“He was really nervous, but I think once he gets out there he’ll be okay.” Bailey answered after a second of thought. 

“I get why he’s nervous, Hearst games are always a big deal.” Erin added as everyone turns back to the field.

“They’re our biggest rivals.” Danielle adds from her spot next to Rory.

“Plus I think they’re extra drama this year. Partly because last year half of Hearst came to Berry for a semester because of the fire.” Rory explained, “And partly because of that guy.”

Rory points to one of the players on the Hearst Team, a smug looking redhead with one of the biggest grin on his face as he takes position on the field. 

“Brian Crandall.”

“Wasn’t he the one who threw a baseball at a girl and almost hurt her? Something about his ability and how he almost really injured the girl.” Bailey asked as she tried to remember the rumors she heard floating around the school. As the game drew closer, the name had come up more in whispers in the halls.

“Among other crimes against humanity.” Erin offered with a sigh.

“Wait, what’s his ability anyway?”

“He absorbs energy and can throw it back.” Bailey’s a little surprised when it’s Skye who answers, “It also means he feels less of an attack, so most attacks don’t hurt him as badly if he’s hit.”

Bailey tilts her head at her companion, “You know a lot about his ability.”

“I should.” Skye snorted as she shook her head, “As unfortunate as it is, he’s my brother.”

Bailey looks towards the smug looking boy on the field to Skye then to Brian, to Skye again.

“The resemblance is only skin deep.” Ajay offered after a moment, Skye seems a little surprised by the comment while Erin is quick to nod. 

“Besides the red hair and last name, you wouldn’t never guess they were related.”

Skye tries to get away from the conversation, quickly looking back at her phone. Bailey stares for a moment as the game starts.

“I’m kinda surprised you didn’t try to hide that.” Bailey points out quietly as Skye looks up at her.

“There really isn’t a point, my brother is one of the reasons I was admitted to the summer program here. And he’s one of the reasons I’ll always have a threat level on my file.” Skye sighed, “Almost all the upperclassmen have access to those files, a lot of people already know he’s my brother. Either from the file or from when I ended up here.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to tell me, I wouldn’t have found out.” Bailey pointed out. Skye seems to think over her next few words.

“You’ve already met my mother, so it’s not as awkward telling you.” Skye explained, her voice unusually soft. “If my mother won’t get you to run away from me, I don’t think my brother will either.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Bailey smiled, “We’re in this together, threat levels and all.”

Skye flashes her a quick smile before there’s yelling on the field. Bailey watches as Brian absorbs the energy from one guy’s tackle, using it against him to send him back flying. 

Bailey sees Skye flinch from the corner of her eye.

“Hey Bailey, where’s your brother?” Erin suddenly asks as she scans the line of players, “I don’t see him.”

Bailey glances through the lines of players. Her eyes finally stop on Casey sitting on the bench with a few more sophomore players.

“That can’t be right.” Bailey shakes her head as she sees the obviously disappointed look on her brother’s face. 

_______________________________________

During half-time, Bailey excuses herself from her group of friends to go find Casey. She spots him at the drinking fountain before walking over.

“Hey.” 

Casey turns his head up to her, 

“Hey.”

“Are you okay?” Bailey asked as she stopped a few paces away from her brother. Casey lets out a sigh.

“Yeah, I guess I just thought I would be playing more. I was really hoping for a nice distraction from everything.” 

Bailey understood, while she buried herself in theatre stuff, Casey had buried himself into his sports. He must have worked really hard to get ready for this game, and to not play had to be a little disappointing, even if he was a freshman and had limited time to begin with.

Before Bailey could say anything a petite girl in a cheerleading uniform rushed down the hall straight toward Casey.

“Casey!” The girl yells cheerfully as she wraps her arms around Casey’s shoulders, pressing a kiss to his cheek. When she pulls away she launches into a rant. “I can’t believe you’re not playing! I’m so furious, if you don’t get any time in the second half Coach Shaw is going to be hearing about it from my daddy. Nobody benches my baby!”

Bailey feels like she has whiplash and turns to Casey who rubs the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Uhhh...”

“Oh! You must be Bailey! I’m Amber, Casey’s girlfriend.” Amber shoots Bailey a super bright smile that has her completely confused as she looks over at Casey.

“It’s really new,” Casey offered. “We started seeing each other right before the game, I guess I was really busy preparing for the game that I forgot to tell you. This is Amber. Amber, this is my twin sister Bailey.”

“It’s so nice to meet you!” Amber flashed a smile and reached over to shake Bailey’s hand. Bailey stares at the girl, confused, before she hears a slightly familiar voice yelling from down the hall.

“Amber, what are you doing? The squad needs you for the routine!” Mia yells, an annoyed look on her face. Amber pouts at her.

“But my boyfriend needs me more.”

“Go ahead, sweetheart, I’ll be okay,” Casey ensures with a smile as the girl kisses him one more time before rushing off towards the annoyed looking Mia. He turns to his sister with a sheepish look.

“You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend!” Bailey almost yelled when Amber was out of earshot. Casey rubs the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry, it’s been crazy all week with the game coming up and we kinda just started seeing each other yesterday.” Casey explained, “I’m sorry, I should have told you.”

“Yeah,” Bailey agreed with a nod, “I need to know these things, I wouldn’t be a good big sister if I didn’t know what was going on with my baby brother.”

Casey chuckles and shove her playfully. “Cut it out, you’re only two minutes older.”

“Two minutes is a long time!” Bailey argued as the two laughed. 

“I should get back.” Casey sighed, “See you later?”

“Yeah, see you later.”

_______________________________________

Bailey hurried back to her seat as the second half of the game started. She manages to work her way over to the bleachers just in time for the kick off, settling between Skye and Erin.

“So, how’s Casey?” Erin asked as Bailey sat down. 

“He’s okay I think, he wishes he was playing.” Bailey explained as Erin nodded. The two turn back to the game and watch as Brian and Frank fight over the football. After a moment the group watches as Brian throws his elbow into Frank’s stomach, releasing stored energy from a few previous tackles, causing the larger player to fall to the ground. One of the refs blows his whistle and flags the play.

“Hey man, not cool!” Lorenzo calls from his place as a few Berry students scowl at the redhead, who only smirks as the ref signals that the play was good. Erin’s quick to throw her hands up frustrated as some of the other Berry students boo at the play.

“That was a cheap shot!” Erin yells as one of the Berry players help Frank off the field. 

“Yeah, he’s known for those.” Skye remarks as Bailey watches the coach signal for Casey to take Frank’s place on the field. “I hope your brother has better luck.”

Bailey hoped so as well. As soon as Casey lines up directly opposite Brian, Bailey leans forward in her seat. Bailey can see Brian taunting Casey from the line, her brother getting a slightly defeated look.

“YOU CAN DO IT CASEY!” Bailey yells, cupping her hands over her mouth to project the sound.

“YEAH! TAKE HIM DOWN CASEY!” Rory yelled as Erin and a few other Theatre kids cheered. Casey looks up at the bleachers for a second, a smile crossing his face for a second before his face goes into total shock. 

Bailey is ready to cheer again when she hears a voice behind her:

“YOU GOT THIS CASEY!”

Bailey’s head snaps over to see her mom and dad sitting in the bleachers behind the theatre kids. 

“You guys are here!” Bailey cheered as she leapt over the bleachers, childish excitement overwhelming her for a moment as her parents caught her in a hug.

“Come on now, did you think we’d miss Casey’s first game?” Greg Jenkins smiled as he patted his daughter on the back. “We haven’t gotten to see you two in over a week, we weren’t about to miss this.”

“Rory helped us get set up with tickets,” Rita mentioned, “since we couldn’t come earlier to get them before the game. We’re sorry we missed the first half, we closed up the diner as fast as we could.”

Bailey pulled away and flashed Rory a grateful smile.

Soon Hearst snaps the ball to their quarterback, who attempts to throw it to Brian. Casey is quick to intercept it. As soon as he catches the ball, Brian is on him, shoulder digging into Casey’s stomach in an attempt to take him down. In a quick movement, Casey turns out of the embrace and runs down the field with the ball as the Berry side of the field cheers.

“WOOO!”   
“GO CASEY!”

Casey runs as fast as he can, his footsteps start shaking the ground around him, knocking some of the defenders on Hearst’s side off balance before they could reach him. The Berry half of the field roars as Casey crosses over the endzone and Berry’s score goes up on the scoreboard.

Casey flashes the biggest grin up into the stands as everyone cheers. 

_______________________________________

After the game, Bailey’s parents and friends group make their way to the edge of the field, waiting for Casey and Greg and Rita chat animatedly with the theatre kids.

“I’m so glad to see you and your brother have made friends, I was so worried.” Rita gushed as Casey started over, dressed in a clean T-shirt and jeans as he jogged over. “I was so relieved when Skye came over to tell us how you were doing.”

Bailey sees the redhead turn away, kicking at the turf. The field was clearing out quickly, Hearst students meeting up with their families as they scurried off to the bus or home. The group pulled off to the side where they were out of everyone’s way. Bailey was practically bouncing with excitement at seeing her parents again. It might have looked a little childish, but after a week of not-normal it was nice to have some normal thrown in.

It’s nice to just talk, Casey’s over the moon talking about his new girlfriend. During his speech Bailey catches Skye trying to move to the edge of the group. 

“Hey,” Bailey moves a little closer, nudging her to not attract the attention of the group. “Everything okay.”

Skye gives a little shrug before looking over Bailey’s shoulder. Bailey follows her gaze over to where Brian, Skye’s mother, and who Bailey assumes to be her father standing by the bleachers waiting to leave. The father looks annoyed; a permanent look of disappointment on his face. Mrs. Crandall keeps sweeping her eyes over the crowd of Berry students.

“You wanna leave?” Bailey asks, catching Skye’s attention again, “I’ll walk back with you.”

“You don’t have to, I can get back to the room myself.” Skye shrugged trying to communicate that it wasn’t a big deal of Bailey didn’t come with her, “You should spend more time with your parents. I can always shadow travel back to the dorms.”

“But you were really tired last time.” Bailey pointed out. Skye offers a half-smile, eye softening at the concern in Bailey’s voice.

“I was really tired, I can handle it now.” Skye assured as she backed away a little, “Later, Bailey.”

“Okay, Later,” Bailey waved as Skye disappeared into the darkness, the faint appearance of darkness in her wake disappearing like smoke.

Bailey savors every moment she can get with her parents before they can’t delay leaving the field any longer. They pull Casey and Bailey into a tight hug for what feels like hours before pulling away reluctantly.

“Principal Rivera says if everything stays calm, you two can come visit the diner during the day. You should bring all your friends over for a big breakfast when you can.” Rita offered with a smile, “I do look forward to seeing them all again.”

“We promise, Mom.” Casey nodded. Bailey could tell he was trying not to sound as disappointed as he was at having to go a few more days without being able to leave the campus. Their mom pulls them into another hug before they have to leave. Bailey immediately feels the same as she did the first night they were on campus. Casey gives a little sigh as he turns to make his way back to the dorms.

“Jenkins,” Ajay started before Bailey could move towards her own dorm. “I almost forgot, you’re getting assigned a mentor next week. Coach Shaw thinks she has someone in mind.”

“Oh.” Bailey had completely forgotten about her mentor assignment. Some of the other freshmen were already paired with upperclassmen for training, Casey included. “Who is it?”

Ajay only smiles as he starts towards the parking lot.

“You’ll see Monday.”


End file.
